The Mermaid and Her Boy
by LoweFantasy
Summary: Sequel to 'The Scientist and His Fish.' Finally, Naru is back in the zone of hunting down the supernatural, but his search becomes frantic when Mai is lost during a storm and he finds himself once more stranded with few tools to help her. Meanwhile, Mai is found by other merfolk who are more than eager to help her forget all about the human world and the scientist who loves her.
1. Prologue

The Mermaid and Her Boy

By LoweFantasy

(Sequel to The Scientist and His Fish)

Prologue

Mai wondered if being in the ocean was a lot like being in the womb. Maybe because of the water, but mostly because the constant white noise it made that, even after birth, soothed a babe. _Shhhhh_. _Shhhhh. Shhhhh._

So why did it not sooth her now? A mermaid, more than anyone, should be comforted by it, and yet in the middle of the night, the day after Jamie disappeared into the depths with a trail of drowning men, Mai lay on her patchy bed, awake and trembling. The moments she'd managed to catch sleep fled her when the nightmares stepped in—of water, of glass, of trails of bright red dissipating into the green-blue water, and of goggled faces pressing closer and closer till a jolt like the electrocutions of her old prison woke her.

Her limbs and muscles ached. Her lips chapped from gnawing and spit. A part of her played with the idea of crawling into the shower in the idea that intensifying the hushing white noise might finally calm her into her much needed sleep. But, then, the boat might run out of fresh water. Though the real reason was because she didn't want to turn into a mermaid; stuck in scales and fins, flipping between breathing air and gills.

 _Shhhh. Shhhh. Shhhh._

The pink of dawn peeked in through her cabin window when she gave in. She dug her fingers into her short hair and let out mewls of misery.

Because she was alone. After all, the white noise only comforted a babe because it meant being with mother.

But Mai didn't even have that.

Desperate, she realized she did have someone, even if that someone was unconscious and confusing. Trying to reel back in the little whimpers escaping her, she slipped off her bed, a wool blanket held about her like a cape, and shuffled out onto the deck. The old yacht sighed against the waves, and that pink dawn carpeted the ocean horizon. The cold wood numbed her feet, but it didn't take long to reach the end of the deck and to the door of the Captain's Quarters.

She made sure to rub her face dry before walking in, just on the off chance he would be awake. Thankfully, he wasn't, and with her heart in her mouth, she closed the door behind her and went to curl up in a tight ball against his sleeping back. Only when his familiar sagebrush scent reached her did she slip off into sleep.


	2. Emotionally Challenged and On Edge

Chapter 1

Satellite internet was a beautiful thing, Kazuya decided. The United States foster care system, on the other hand, was not.

His bends headache hadn't even dissipated before he slumped into his chair down in the kitchen and tackled the mission of getting Mai over to the Queen's land and out of danger as soon as they hit a dock. It only took him a few minutes to learn that, with Mai's status as a ward of the state, it would be nigh impossible to get her a passport in any reasonable amount of time, let alone getting the necessary paperwork to even allow her to get out of the damn country and into another. Then there was the fact that, even when she was in another country, she was still considered a United States citizen, and therefore under United States jurisdiction.

After tugging on his hair hard enough to make his eyes water, he put his face into the keyboard and hissed out his favorite cuss words. Why'd he have to fall in love? Damnit, why'd he have to be a teenager? That had to be what was at fault here, his damn effing hormones on the alert to mate.

Of course, he knew that wasn't the case. Love or not, he wouldn't have allowed an innocent girl to get sucked back into the torturing system of the Aquatic Agriculture Association (or was it 'America' instead of 'Association'? Ugh, like he cared). He also knew it wasn't stupidity to fall in love, as his studies into human nature and culture proved to him the love between a man and woman made the flesh, blood, and foundation of human society.

And despite his genius and success, Kazuya was still eighteen, in pain, and beyond stressed out.

He almost lashed out at his assistant when he stepped over and set a mug of tea next to him with a soft click. Lucky for Kazuya (or lucky for Lin), he didn't say anything, which was often his way.

Kazuya let the computer keys imprint in his forehead a bit longer before sitting up and taking a whiff of the hot earl grey.

"Where are we?" he said.

"Roughly a day's sail from the coast of Houston," said Lin in his usual flat tone.

"Can't this thing go faster? Gun the engine or something?"

"Yes, but we shouldn't. We need to conserve the fuel we have."

As he had said yesterday when he had Kazuya running back and forth to help get the stupid sails up in the first place. He should have gotten a stupid smaller yacht.

"Do we have enough to get to Housten?"

Silence.

"I asked a question, Lin."

"I don't know, and I will not try it."

Or in other words, employer or not, Lin wasn't about to take sail instructions from an eighteen year old who knew the basics and nothing else. They would get there when they got there and Kazuya would just have to deal with it.

Which left Kazuya with little to nothing to do.

Still grumbling, he made an attempt to research more on how to hire a government level hacker as Lin set down a bagel with cream cheese along with a second cup, which Kazuya had asked him to make for the sleeping mermaid in his bed. At the look on his assistant's face when he said that, he almost blushed, but he did have some dignity. It didn't matter what Lin thought happened, because whatever it was, it didn't. Even if the young genius had wanted to do something to the girl, recovering from the bends had knocked him out cold the moment he had a calm moment after confessing his love and he had simply woken up after a day of sleep with her unconscious besides him.

It didn't take a genius, though, to know what the trails of dried tears and swollen lips meant. And he might be a heartless bastard, but even he knew better than to try to seduce an emotionally unhinged girl, never mind the fact that he had standards, believe it or not.

Thus…the tea. Hopefully she would wake up before it got too cold.

He nibbled at the bagel and clicked another page. Nothing. Just more fictional jabbering or wannabes.

Just before turning off the computer completely, a new thought occurred to him—one that he instantly shot down. Sure, it might get her out of the country, but it just wasn't going to happen. No sooner had he dispelled it when memories of her fingers in his hair came back with the force wonderful memories often came with.

And trailing behind it was the research.

Back in the triple A, they had hired him to find mermaids, after all, and since he had a basis in investigating myths in the first place, he had a good hand for it. Though he only had interests in learning how to break out of the hellhole with Mai and whatever mermaid he could take with him, he had to make it look like he was doing what he was hired for, right? That meant actual research into mermaids. In attempts to help him, they had given him what research they had, which had consisted of years of sonograms, satellite footage, and accounts.

But what had caught his attention wasn't the maps of underwater mountains or the stories of supposed 'mermaid' sightings. It was another myth, one he had researched into for only a few minutes and decided was nothing. And yet, combined with the fact that mermaids (maybe even all merfolk) could walk on land when dry—could even blend in with society, perhaps—came another idea that, perhaps…perhaps…

But if he started thinking merfolk were interfering with oceanic studies to hide their whereabouts, then he really would have nowhere to go.

Which just brought him back to the debunked myth of the Bermuda Triangle.

He pulled up a map of it as he thought, stale bagel squeaking between his teeth and his forehead furrowed against the headache. From what information he had gotten from the triple A (of course they didn't give him anything, but most he got through observation (idiots)), mermaids, and perhaps merfolk in general, preferred, maybe even needed warmer waters. They didn't have much insulation or blubber to speak of, and unless there was some secret plant or animal that grew in abundance on the ocean floor, food sources were more abundant in warmer waters as well. However, warmer waters were also harder to hide in, for obvious reasons: shallow water, animal life, tourist attractions, etc.

Which meant, wherever merfolk hid, there would be no escaping people, and therefore they would need more than some land folk to hide news and studies of them. They'd need to stop those tales from happing, which meant disappearing persons.

And the Bermuda Triangle was based off of mysteriously disappearing persons and sunken ships. Not only that, but half of it touched upon the warmest ocean waters in the world.

Thus, he found himself pulling up the papers and studies he had thought to never revisit on just why the Bermuda Triangle didn't exist. This time, rather than skimming through it and picking out the sources and evidence he needed, he read it carefully, taking notes on the side in his battered composition journal. Thank God Lin had thought to bring that down with him this morning. Kazuya hated nothing more than menial tasks getting in the way of a breakthrough. Walking up a set of stairs and digging through his room for a notebook was one of those.

He had just tracked down one particularly critical source to a woman and was doing a background check into her education when the door to the kitchen squeaked open and a bleary eyed, copper haired girl shuffled in, wearing one of his bigger shirts. Even though she also wore a pair of his sweats, he couldn't stop the memory rising of when she had only worn the shirt and the flash of thigh and higher as she leapt into the ocean.

He quickly looked away. This couldn't be healthy.

"Care to explain why you were in my bed?" he asked.

She didn't say anything at first. Just sat at the table and stared down at the second teacup of tea. He nudged it closer to her to indicate it was for her, then looked back to his screen, though he didn't read any more.

Then, she wrapped her hands around the tea and sighed. "I didn't want to be alone."

Made sense. He had read somewhere that people, when anxious, craved human touch. And watching your fellow mermaid along with a dozen or so other men die before your eyes would make anyone anxious, although the men themselves had drown out of sight.

But she had sung the song that did that to them.

"You're not concerned about your part in those men's drowning, right?" Best to make sure.

"No. They killed Jamie." Her flat tone picked up a sharp bite there.

He took a sip of his tea. Hatred, perhaps? Hatred was rarely healthy, yes, but normal. He could handle that.

"What upset you last night, then? Just recent events?" At the look she gave him, he added, "I would have assumed that, but I'd rather not make a mistake in…in something I'm not particularly good at."

Aka, he didn't want to hurt Mai more than he already had by just being himself, and being himself could possibly just aggravate whatever was bothering her now. He also worried that, should he leave her to sort out the trauma of triple A by herself, she may develop emotional instabilities akin to chronic depression and panic attacks, and they didn't have the time to properly deal with those.

But she just hugged her mug of tea, bit her lip, and sighed again.

Something that had already been tense with stress beneath his rib cage twisted tighter and he frowned.

"Mai—"

"I'm thinking, just be your usual heartless self for a minute, okay?"

He didn't particularly care for that statement, but he clenched his jaw and tried to practice a measure of patience.

He finished the rest of the stale bagel by the time she spoke.

"I'm just…scared. I'm a freak, after all, and the whole…you know, thing, just sort of nailed into my head how little of a future I have. I can't go to college, heck, I can't even finish high school—I can't do anything normal. It's like I'm not a person anymore. And then to top it off, I'm all alone. I have no family, no..."

"You have me," he said, with a squirm of his stomach and a slight heat on the back of his neck.

"That's why I climbed into bed with you last night." She gave him a shy look through her lashes then went down to staring into her tea. "I'm just uncertain, that's all. And…the torture…it's hard to forget."

"I imagine," he said dryly. "Is that all?"

She thought for a minute, then shook her head.

Figuring that was about as much research as he was going to get done this morning, he closed his laptop and leveled his attention on her. "First of all, half of what you said is false. Who says you can't complete high school and college? You can still be human as long as you're dry, and I still intend to find a place where you can be feel safe. Being able to turn into a mermaid is simply a part of you, it doesn't change who you are. When I said you had to learn to live as a mermaid I didn't mean you had to abandon your human side as well. It's just wise, since, from now on, you will live part of your life that way."

She sipped at her tea as he spoke. Her shoulders seemed to relax as he said these things, but her eyes still conveyed the same apprehension.

"But…Naru, I can't depend on you like that—not that I'm saying you aren't trustworthy, but you have your own life. How can I learn to live like this if you do it for me?"

He snorted. "Alright, then, shall I push you over board and let you get recaptured for opal harvest?" When she flinched, he rolled his eyes. "Mai Taniyama, I'm not going to let you go. I'm giving you no choice but to depend on me because, right now, your life is in danger, and I can't allow that."

Her eyes narrowed. "What kind of guy controls a girl he loves like that?"

Now it was his turn to flinch. That's right. His words did come off a little…controlling, which was suppose to be unhealthy, abusive even.

That twisted, tight feeling in his gut gave a nasty spike of pain that made his hands grow cold. He couldn't be like that. He had never wanted someone's well-being and happiness more in his life, and the idea that his own attempts to ensure that might defeat the purpose made his thoughts jumble together and his heart constrict.

But he couldn't let her go either. He couldn't…

Images of her bruised eyes and pale, limp body came to his mind. The tight corners of the cell of screens, the vomit floating on top of the tank, the after glow of LED's and featureless people dressed in rubber suits.

Then there was Mai, petite, soft, and vulnerable in the present, sitting across from him with her lips pursed and having no idea what affect she had on him just by wearing his T-shirt.

He opened his mouth. Then he closed it. What could he say? What was there to say?

She cocked her head to the side. "You okay? All I said was don't boss me around, I'm not going to go jumping off the side of the boat or anything."

Of course she wouldn't. She wasn't talking actual actions, these were feelings they were talking about, feelings that he was trying to relieve before they caused problems. When had he forgotten that? When had he lost control over himself?

Thus, he forced on a smile after taking a breath to relieve the tension that had momentarily overwhelmed him. "You have to depend on me, whether you like it or not. I don't know how to help you feel better about that other than saying it is no problem or trouble to me. I prefer it this way."

"Not much dignity in it."

"There's little dignity to be found in survival."

"I suppose so." She drained the last of her tea. "Thanks for caring, though it's still kind of weird. What you been up to this morning?"

"Research. Looks like we won't be able to be getting you out of the country as soon as we like, so I was looking into the likelihood of finding the other merfolk, just as a second option. And before you ask, yes, I also looked more into hiring a hacker to save the others, though if we can find the other merfolk in any reasonable amount of time, we could also ask them for assistance."

"That is if they're even out there."

"That very question is exactly what I'm good at." He couldn't help but smirk. It felt good to finally dip back into that which he didn't fail at. "You may like to forget it, but I am the world's leading expert in proving the extraordinary and paranormal."

"But the ocean's so big!"

"Only a matter of cutting it down to the sections worth looking into. And since we have a living mermaid right here," he dipped his chin towards her. "We already have plenty of clues to work with. Are you up to some labwork today?"

"Labwork?"

"Blood samples, scale samples, basic experiments."

She jaw dropped and her eyes widened. She spluttered a bit before pushing out the words, "But you said—experimenting on your—I thought you said you loved me!"

The heat on the back of his neck again. "What does that have to do with it? You want to find others, don't you?" Then a bit of his pride twinged. She didn't honestly think of him like those triple A bastards, did she? "I'm not going to hurt you, just get data."

She stared at him. "Uh, Naru?"

"What?" Why'd she have to keep calling him that? Why?! And why'd did she look all unsure like that too? It wasn't like he sounded angry—he wasn't angry. Just annoyed.

"I…" she shook her head, and for a moment he thought he could see her cheeks pinkening. "I'm sorry, I was being silly. Of course. We'll work together on this. And…I hope you know I don't hate you. I…"

But she didn't say what she meant, just looked at him with those flushing cheeks and shadow lined brown eyes.

Lin choose that moment to step into the kitchen. He didn't have to say anything but look at him. Kazuya heaved a sigh. That's right. This ship wasn't supposed to be run off of only two men, let alone one able man and one getting over the bends.

He pushed his chair back and stood up. "I'm coming. Mai, you better come too. Best you learn what you can about staying alive on a boat."


	3. The Ocean Has Bipolar Disorder

**And we have a winner! Snavej has answered the call for fanart! So here is a chapter. ^.^**

 **If you want to see it, ask her for the link. Or you can check out "The Scientist and His Fish" on Quotev next week, where I'll be posting it to the next chapter there.**

 **R &R, folks, and wish me luck as I go to play my fife for a Christmas program at my church. **

Chapter 2

Despite how Naru pressed that they needed all the help they could get, most of the time Mai was reduced to watching as she didn't have the arm strength to adjust a sail holding the brunt weight of the wind or keep her starboard and portside nautical terms straight. Not that she didn't want to work, the distraction would have been welcomed with open arms. But since she had no such thing, and since Naru wasn't about to let her curl back into her dark hole of a room (something about sunshine being good for serotonin levels), she was left to think, fidget, and blush.

Because he said he loved her, but what did that mean? He didn't treat her any differently than he had back at the triple A, and he was his same arrogant, smart-ass, emotionally insecure self (but that made sense, as being in love didn't change you that dramatically). But that also meant he gave no signal or sign as to what he expected of her, which just made her all the more aware of how little she knew him. Watching him running back and forth across the ship with a radio to his ear, where Yui buzzed in instructions, she didn't feel as if she was learning much more.

When the two, white-as-cloud sails went abruptly slack, as though God had flicked off a wind switch, she sat in the same spot Naru had left her: in the shade given by the roof of the yacht's cabin.

He squinted up into the sun, his shirt sticking to him with sweat. She had just been outlining the curve of his shoulders and thinking how oddly and wonderfully _him_ they were as she finished the last bites of a particularly large tuna fish and cheese sandwich.

"Weird," he said, tugging a bit on the sail's left tacking, but it just hung there, lifeless.

The radio buzzed. "Tighten it. The wind might kick up quick."

So he pulled the tacking tight till the sail turned into something less than a sideways hammock.

He loved her. Did that mean she loved him? She definitely didn't feel nothing for him. But did she want to love him? He wasn't exactly the best choice in men, and she'd like to avoid heartbreak if she could. Besides, getting involved with him meant she would end up considering him for marriage, right? That was what dating was for. But he wasn't exactly the best with emotions, not to mention he was a complete narcissist at times and a workaholic. She shouldn't let her heart run away with her.

Then again, she had kissed him back. She'd…liked it; the closeness, with his sea tinted scent and hot hands in her hair.

The radio buzzed again. "Do you see that haze too?"

A fine layer of clouds, the kind you'd see on a muggy fall day, had passed over the sun. While the blue sky could still be made out, the shadows faded.

Naru's jaw tightened. He unhooked the radio and clicked it on by his mouth. "Is this normal for sea weather? I didn't see any clouds a minute ago."

There was a pause before Yui clicked back in. "Not entirely, but the weather can turn quickly over the sea. Best get your life jacket on just in case."

The teen boy gave a grunt of annoyance, but said nothing. He probably was thinking of how uncomfortable and hot running around in a bulky life jacket would be. He verified this to Mai when he took his time wandering into the shade next to her and unhooking the orange monstrosity.

"Been drinking?" he asked.

She showed him the mostly empty water bottle. He gave a curt nod and went back to readjusting the life jacket straps.

For a second she wondered if she should get a life jacket on too, but then smiled. A mermaid needing a life jacket? Ha. If anything it would be the thing to drown her by pinning her gills down.

"I haven't seen you drink anything," she said with a frown.

"I'll get some once I'm done with this." One arm in, a click. "Say, Mai, what are your feelings on marriage?" At her little jump and alarmed expression, he added, "Overall feelings. I'm not asking you to marry me."

She heaved a sigh of relief, but didn't miss the little drop of disappointment in her stomach. "I always planned on getting married when I found the right guy. My mom hammered it pretty hard into my head to get married first and sex second, probably because my dad ran off before she could even bring up tying the knot. And it's not like I want to be alone forever."

He watched her face as she said this, and she couldn't shake off the feeling of being x-rayed. The almost violet like blue of his eyes didn't help. He really did have such a handsome face.

The deck beneath them suddenly gave a lurch. Mai found herself tipped painfully onto her hip with Naru clinging onto a post next to her.

"What the—" the deck lurched in the other direction. Mai slid a foot down the hard wood floor.

The haze above them had reached the density of white-grey smoke. The air dropped several degrees as mist brushed against their skin.

Naru nearly dropped the walkie-talkie in his rush. "Yui?"

"A wave," it crackled. "Find yourself some rope, quick, I can see another coming."

Naru clipped the walkie-talkie back onto his belt loop and jumped towards the hooks where he had just taken his life jacket off. A loop of yellow nylon rope slapped onto the floor, one end tied down to an iron hook in the wall.

"Where'd this come from?" Mai asked as Naru slid over to her and wrapped the rope about her waist. Through the heavy scent of sweat she could catch the scent of sage, which had risen to a heady musk. A sweaty man had never smelled so good.

When his fingers slid across her waist, her face heated up.

"I've heard stories of monster waves out of the blue," he said as he quickly tied one knot, then pulled the rest of the rope behind his own waist. "But it was always during—"

The world tipped on its axis. A tote and some unanchored equipment slid past and landed with a bang against the railing. Naru caught onto her hand at the last minute with his other arm to the post he had leaned against earlier. She wondered just how secure it was, and whether the deck above would fall down on them should it not be.

The boat tipped the other way. The blue tote and a few bottles slid and banged against the opposite railing.

"Quick! Tie yourself on!" she cried.

Naru was already on it, hands tying with the deftness of an Eagle Scout.

The radio crackled. "Kazuya, something's wrong."

As the boat rocked and the last of their shadows blurred away, Naru brought the walkie talkie back up. "No shit."

"The compass and GPS are going haywire," said Yui. "Can you tell me anything about that mist down there?"

"Besides that it came out of nowhere? Unless you saw the clouds before we did."

"No. All blue. Literally from nowhere."

A loud smack of water was their only warning before the boat tipped back up, then back down the other side of the wave just to hit another. Sea spray showered them, making the ends of her feet tingle. Mai's knuckles cracked as she clung to Naru's damp shirt. Every hair on her body had gone on end.

The sail remained empty.

Naru seemed to notice this at the same time she did. "Yui, it's something beneath the water. Check the sonar."

The hushing of the ocean had risen to a roar of waterfalls. The wack of a smaller wave flung more sea water over them, and Mai let out a little cry of pain as the pins and needles in her feet intensified and shot up her legs. Naru's arm tensed tight around her.

"Just hold on a bit longer, I'll try to get you inside. If you need to you can take off the sweats, I won't care."

Not that she would have much of a choice in whether Naru would care or not to see her naked lower half. One more wave—one more spray of water and then she'd—

 _Fwoosh._

Mai and Naru lifted off from the deck. The loops of rope hissed and snapped taunt. A rod of pain slapped into her back as the railing caught them. Then their momentum tipped them over. The ocean waited for them on the other side.

Cold. Ice. Dark—Mai barely managed to kick off the too big sweats before the stiffening of bone and swelling of muscles cracked her consciousness closed.

When she came to, not only did she have a long copper scaled tail where her legs once were, but Naru's arms held her aloft a roaring valley of water. Behind them the yacht groaned with strained metal and the shifting of engine gears.

Above the roar, she could just hear Naru's breath panting against her ear.

"Hold on tight!"

The ship was still rising, tilting, tilting-waves like great arms closing in.

She flung her arms around his neck.

"I won't let you drown!" she cried back. "I won't!"

The panting breath laughed. "Not my biggest concern, but thanks."

The old yacht seemed to stop in mid air, frozen in time. Then, with a great groan, it went vertical.

And the top of the masts tipped off into the oncoming wave.


	4. Fish Overboard

**Say thanks to randomness2325 for her fan art of mermaid Mai! Here's another chapter. It's a bit on the short side, but it's to compensate for the next chapter, which is really really long.**

 **(and to all ye on cliffhangers: all good writers are jerkweed sadists. Not making this up, it's quotable material. Think about it.)**

Chapter 3

Kazuya braced himself for the wave. The rush of waters hit him like a solid wall—like the worse belly flop in the world.

And then the brunt portside of the yacht smacked into them.

His vision blotched with darkness as the wind was knocked from him. The only thing holding him to consciousness was the slender warmth of Mai in his arms and the burn of the nylon rope around his chest. Every fiber of his being screamed to not let her go, to not give in to the iron will of the waters prying at his grip. His biceps and back shot with white-hot spikes from the effort.

His head broke the water and he yanked his abused lungs open. Mai's soft arms still clung to his neck. The nylon rope hung them over the side of the yacht, which, by a work of some miracle, hadn't capsized. Steel colored waters spread out in front of him, the next monster wave hidden in its depths.

"Don't let go!" he shouted.

Then, from the sea spray besides them, appeared a head; a man, pale skinned, dark haired, and with eyes set upon Kazuya with a grim ferocity.

Next thing he knew his numb arms were being pried apart by an icy grip he couldn't deny. Mai squirmed, crying out in alarm, when another pair of arms untangled her from around his neck.

"Kazuya!"

It was the first time she had ever called him by his given name, and it was as she was being torn away.

Even afterwards he couldn't understand the feral ferocity that overcame him then. He gnashed his teeth, he yelled, he fought with every last bit of strength and more against the pale arms that rose from the water to hold him back and the malicious faces that followed them. He could hear her crying for him long after she was dragged under water. Mind burning fury and terror seized all his coherent thought.

"MAI!"

The waiting wave smashed him into the yacht. The strong arms from the water slipped away.

And so did his awareness.

His last thought before the utter darkness overwhelmed him was of mermen.

A disheveled and wet Lin looked down at him. Behind him the sky was blue, not a cloud in sight. Every part of him felt bruise, and it took him a minute to understand why everything inside of him tight with alarm.

But when he did, he simply blinked. For once in his life, his busy, genius, always thinking brain was dead quiet.

"How do you feel?" Lin asked.

Kazuya sat up with a groan. He put a shaking hand to his face. How could anyone feel so empty?

"Kazuya?"

"They took her. Merfolk. Took Mai."

And he didn't have a clue where they'd taken her.


	5. Down in the Deep with Mermen

**Since you people keep sending me fan art. This is for Virtual Rose. If you want a link to see the pictures, pay attention to the author notes and ask the users themselves.**

 **R &R, fwends. ^.^ Thanks for reading!**

Chapter 4

The arms about her waist held her with an iron grip, and when she flailed about in panic a soft voice hushed into her ear, but the words it spoke escaped her.

"Please," she said. "You're making a mistake! Take me back!"

But the rush of the waters forced her eyes closed, and she hadn't a clue of where she was. Only the dropping temperature told her they were going deeper, and that terrified her. She hardly had the sense of mind to piece together that it was a merman, a huge bear of a merman, who held her.

When her attempts made not a scratch in getting him to let go of her, she went slack, straining with all her might to hear and smell and see, but the moment the waters calmed enough for her to see again, it was so dark she could just make out the outlines of three other merfolk, scales glistening colorlessly in the faint light. She couldn't even make out which way was up anymore.

"Please, where are you taking me? Can you at least talk to me?"

The gentle voice of her captor responded back, but she still couldn't understand his words. After a few minutes, in which she whimpered at the darkness about them, the merman pulled her down from his shoulder and let her drift along his side while keeping a firm hold on her arm. His hand nearly took up her entire forearm.

One of the figures said something, and Mai could recognize him as another male. Her own merman responded, but once more she couldn't tell heads or tails of what they were saying. It just unnerved her farther to find her captors didn't speak English.

"Do…do you understand me?"

No one answered. Good an answer as anything.

She didn't know how long they pulled her along. They moved swiftly, faster than she could have hoped to swim, but silently. Nothing but water passed by her, and all there was left was the faint murmur of the ocean's breathing and her own heartbeat. Her hands and face were soon numb with cold, and she asked more than once for heat, hoping they could understand something, but they didn't respond. When her body gave one particular shudder, however, the merman pulled her up and wrapped her tightly in his huge arms. While her insides squirmed with mortification, the warmth of another body worked in dispelling the shivers. She had to wonder how he stayed so warm in waters so cold.

After what felt like an eternity, in which her nerves had time to calm enough to allow curiosity, the waters started to warm. Up ahead she thought she could make out a faint luminescent glow—or perhaps something like fire.

Then it shot beneath her, and the breathing of the ocean rose to a hissing rush. Her stomach lurched with a change of momentum, and she got the impression of great speed. The merman's arms about her tightened almost painfully.

Despite the churning, jerking speed, the warmer waters dispelled the rest of her chill. After a while the waters grew to a dim, almost twilight like quality, and she was able to make out enough of her captors to see that they were all males with pale skin. One had splotched skin, like large caramel freckles, that dotted along his shoulders and upper back. When he glanced back at them, which they all did often, she saw his face was splotched as well. On meeting her eye, she thought he smiled, but it was still too dark to quite tell. She thought their scales could be cooler colors, like blues and greens, and their hair dark as well, but again the lighting couldn't reveal much. She did note, however, that among the four mermen, none of them had a long, flowing, skirt-like fins like herself. Theirs were utilitarian in form, like a dolphin's or salmon's.

More warm, fire like glows passed beneath them.

For once, the depth of the ocean seemed like another world to her, rather than a dark unknown for monsters to hide, and she dared to let the last of her fear slip away. They wouldn't kill her or hurt her, surely. It was probably just a big misunderstanding. But if they couldn't understand what she was saying—and what if Naru had—what if the ship had…

Without thinking, her grip on the merman's arm tightened. He asked her something and his arms loosened to a more comfortable grip.

What could have been hours slipped by. More than once the warmth of the merman against her back and the drain of her terror threatened to make her nod off. Once she thought she could have fallen asleep, but the dim, twilight water tended to blur memories into one another, and the mermen swimming about them always kept the same formation with their arms held stiffly at their sides. It made her think of trained soldiers.

At long last the soft voice of the bear-like merman brought her out of one such daze to see lighter waters that had grown cool again. The growing light brought out more details to the mermen to find that her assumption of cooler colors was only somewhat correct. One had a dark brown tail and hair, the spotted merman was a creamy, rusted sort of ocher that also matched his hair, and only the third was an earthen, muddy green. All three had the same short cropped hair, and for the first time she noticed a black, stringy belt of sorts about their waists. A bone box or sheath of sorts waved from this belt in their slipstreams, along with pill shaped beads around their necks, also of a dark color.

Each of them rippled with muscle, from their shoulders to the tips of their streamline tails.

She was partially surprised when the merman holding her allowed her to twist around and get a better look at him. He even released her to be pulled along at his side once more to get a better look. Like the others, his colorations were earthy, though tinted with grays and blues, like ocean camouflage. She had been right in assuming he was broad, and the bands of muscles along his arms and barrel like chest promised phenomenal strength. However, his face was boyish, and he met her curious gaze with a soft smile that matched the voice which had murmured to her. His hair was shorter than the others, barely velvet fuzz over his scalp, but his bushy eyebrows more than made up for it.

He pointed to himself with his free hand. "Vovo."

"Vovo?"

He nodded, then pointed to her. Feeling like a rehash of Tarzan, she told him her name and tried not to blush when he repeated it, then called out to the others and told them her name as well. They returned mirroring soft smiles to her, as though to a natural disaster victim they were trying not to scare, and went back to their stiff, forward moving formation.

Volvo the giant's grip on her arm didn't relax, however, as they gradually moved higher into lighter waters. More details came into focus, like glittering shafts of plankton and shimmering schools of fish. At one point she thought she even saw something bigger and her heart leapt at the idea of a shark, but surrounded by the formidable mermen, she didn't particularly feel afraid. Surely this lot could deal with one shark.

A great archway of stone appeared ahead of them from the gloom, covered in a swaying carpet of coral, sea grasses, and phalangy sea life. The glass like globes of jellyfish drifted lazily in shafts of amber sunlight, and far below she thought she could just make out the sandy bottom and its scuttling crabs. As they passed through the arch, she caught splashes of colorful starfish and managed a small smile.

"This isn't so bad," she said to herself. The cold water was even getting warmer as the mirror-like surface came into view. Once it did, however, it stayed at that far away distance as the pod of mermen leveled out. Mai couldn't help but glance up longingly at the murky glass of sky.

"Vovo," said the brown tailed of the men, followed by a curt question. Vovo responded in one word, and the brown merman sped ahead of them with a mighty kick of his tail. The last two, the creamy speckled and dark green, spread apart into a new formation that formed a triangle with Vovo, who made up the tip.

"Where's he going?" Mai asked.

Vovo gestured in front of him with a big hand and said "malesstev," as though that was answer enough.

She sighed. Whatever it was, hopefully it had a stopping point. Her arm was already starting to grow tired, not to mention she had just realized how hungry she was.

Then, quite suddenly, the water turned clear as glass and a great ocean valley spread out below her, sharp with color and shapes. Her gills clapped painfully shut with her gasp of surprise.

From above it could have been an outcropping of rock, even a mass of coral. But clearly outlined by the setting light above was a towering building, carved into the side of the valley's ravine walled. Small buildings of stone and coral hugged its feet, sparkling with bits of reflective stone, sand, and mother of pearl.

But that wasn't what caught her breath.

Merpeople, soaring through weaving streets of sand and through openings in the coral, numbered in the thousands, and of all colors of the rainbow. Though, at first glance, she noticed most of them were of earthen tones like her male entourage.

It took her a full minute to realize they had stopped, high above the deep water city, and that all four of three of the men were grinning at her, not maliciously so, but happily, as though pleased by her reaction. One of them spoke to her in that strange buzzing sort of language of theirs, but it just reemphasized her impression that they thought of her as a victim or survivor of sorts.

Nonetheless, she didn't fight at all when they surrounded her and escorted her down and down into the deeper waters. Plumes of bubbles and dark water rose in streams from a section of the coral city, where she thought she could see tall underwater pillars, which she realized a second later could only be little volcanoes or…what were those called? Vents? But they were too far away to get a better look.

It took a long while to drop down into a space in the organized sprawl of sand streets and burrow like houses, so the townsfolk in the vicinity of their landing had plenty of time to notice. By the time the mermen pulled her down the last foot with a flurry of sand and tiny tropical fish, a small crowd had gathered.

Mai's heart raced. It was like a dream. A jewel-like, fairytale dream.

Men in earthy tones flocked colorful women wearing halters of scales, seaweed, and shells. They wore tightly strung jewelry with bits of gold, pearl, and coral. Little children with fat, stubby tails peeked through the fins of the adults, jabbering and squealing when her eyes passed over them. She could hear the life of the city, shouting, chatting, the chink of hammers, builders, the hiss of heated water, and the rising streams of bubbles like smoke from chimneys.

She had never thought to imagine an underwater village to be so…idyllic.

Then she noticed how many of the adults leaned over to whisper in other's ears, giving her wide-eyed, furtive looks. None of them drew near, though all eyes were on her.

Her stomach squeezed painfully. She bit her lip and drew her hands into her chest. She must look so strange in this floppy too big T-shirt. But if she took it off, the cotton-thin bra the triple A had issued to her would be see through, and she didn't see any bare-breasted mermaids. Even most of the men wore vests of woven seaweed and coral.

Vovo appeared in her line of sight, still smiling kindly. His grip on her arm had slid down to take up her hand gently. He had his body bent down to meet her eyes. She didn't understand the words he murmured, but he tugged on her hand gently and she followed him into the crowd, which fluttered out of the way.

"Mai," he said to the crowd. "Vi voche norsal Mai."

By the way they were staring, you'd think they didn't get newcomers every day.

 **If you have read my published novel, "Out of Duat," please leave a review. : In order for it to do well I need at least twenty, and so far I only have two. One which is from my mom... Which doesn't count, as my mom doesn't even like fantasy novels, ancient Egypt with time-travel romance, necromancers, or otherwise.**

 **And if you're up for leaving a review on it, you can get an electronic copy of it on Amazon for $3. ^.^ I pushed for that especially so I could get it out to as many people as possible! Though it's also available in hardcopy, though if you want the cheapest route, check out my profile. I have directions to go directly to the printer so you don't have to give money to Amazon for selling the book to you.**

 **I'd really, REALLY appreciate it. And, well, if you like the rough drafts of my mermaid story, you'll probably like the perfected piece "Out of Duat" that took three years to rewrite, revise, and edit before it could even be considered for print.**


	6. Nerd Gets On His Hero Cape

**And this is for user Ronta Iga Dorolezhevas (whew, that's a mouthful), for sending me the best fanart yet. Ya'll got to message her your emails if you want to see it, because she tried to send me the link via PM several times and it don't work.**

 **Also, since I'm cheap and because I'm afraid of you catching up to me, this is also the weekly update. )...No, it's just because I'm lazy and have had an incredibly rough week. Please don't spear me!**

Chapter 5

Kazuya stared at his laptop for a full fifteen minutes after drying off. He wondered which stunned him more: the sudden onset and disappearance of the storm, his own survival, or Mai's kidnapping. Since he could have handled strange phenomenon any other day, weather or not, the lack of Mai was probably the answer to that. However, he would be the last to admit such in the face of probably never getting said girl back.

And it was that thought that seized up his mind and fingers every time, even after he had unstuck himself enough to type in his first question into the search engine.

 _The first girl I fall in love with, and she's disappeared into the depths of the Atlantic._

He didn't even really care for boats. He didn't even like the ocean.

He tried to continue his research into the Bermuda Triangle, but kept reading the first three sentences over and over without taking in a word of it. The memory of his arms being pried apart kept rising to his mind, along with the last image he had of her face, scrunched up in a wail of his name. The first time she called him by his actual name and it was as she was being dragged away.

His dream of sitting with her by the fire, with her hand in his hair and a book in his lap, came back to him, this time with an awful pang of loneliness he barely recognized. When had he last felt lonely? Had he ever? Was this really what it felt like? Desperately wanting to see someone until it took your breath and knocked you like a punch to the stomach?

He curled his head into the crook of his arms.

A familiar hand appeared on his shoulder, warm and hard.

"Perhaps this is for the best. You wanted her to find her people, after all."

Yes, but he had wanted to find them with her, and he had never intended to abandon her to them. He had…what? Wanted to make her happy? Or had he been selfishly following his own agenda? He was, after all, an arrogant narcissist with no talent in understanding people's emotions.

Maybe…maybe this was for the best…not just for Mai. But especially for Mai.

Because…if he really did love her…why would he want her to end up with a selfish, thoughtless, unsociable man like him? He'd probably end up neglecting her by getting caught up in his work. If not that, he'd probably wound her without even noticing. Did he even know how to make a woman happy? He had never done it before, but then he had never cared this much before. He never knew he _could_ care this much.

Which brought him back to the matter at hand. Did he love her enough to not pursue her any farther? The merfolk had found her, probably drawn by the sound of her voice, maybe even had been watching from afar the whole time. She was with her people. They would take care of her, surely, as they had gone through the trouble of endangering Kazuya's vessel and taking her away from him.

Again the memory of her crying out his name, and he winced. The hollow aching in the pit of his stomach felt raw and dry, like an open wound. Damn. This couldn't be what love was, could it? How long would it stay like this?

Lin's hand left as he went to prepare some tea. He would need Kazuya up and running if they were to get the yacht back on course for Houston.

Kazuya lifted his head to stare at the computer screen with glazed eyes. Some of the words passed over him, but others stuck, and even in his preoccupation a part of his mind was whizzing away, picking up clues, continuing down the hypothesis of the Bermuda Triangle being the hiding grounds of merfolk.

Lin tapped a spoon on the handle of the teapot.

He could still go after her. It was a week's sail away, but he could still go. But what if he couldn't find her? The merfolk had been hidden for so long, what if he needed another mermaid to find them? What if a real storm came along and upended his ship? What if he was wrong? What if he spent months, years, searching for the girl with warm chocolate for eyes that could see through his pretensions, but then never find her?

Would she even want him to?

The high pitched whistling of the teapot was short lived. Lin poured in the hot water across the tea packet, then handed the mug to Kazuya, who glanced at it, but stayed in his hunched, arm-over head position.

"Thoughts?" he said.

Lin fingered the underside of his jaw, where the first sign of stubble always grew. Even now Kazuya could make out the faint dark shadow of facial hair. It only made an appearance when Lin was particularly overworked.

"You did come out here to study mermaids. This is the breakthrough that would make your career, though I doubt that is your point of interest anymore."

Kazuya grunted, but didn't comment to that. Did he have to?

Nevertheless, Lin gave him a straight lipped smile that could only mean that he was amused.

"Don't do anything you would regret. Because besides that, what else is there?"

This confused him. What else is there? To what, regret? Or what else was there to worry about? Money? Time? Prestige? Maybe even his life?

Without thinking he picked up the teacup to take a sip and ended up burning his tongue. Cursing, he dropped it too quickly and it splashed on his hand. Lin just watched him hiss and wave his hand around with that same, straight lipped smile. Kazuya didn't have to ask. All his life drinking tea, why would he burn himself now of all times? Stupid question.

Cursing, he slapped his laptop closed. He wouldn't be getting anything done sitting here and moping. Hell, was that what he was really doing? Ugh, the humanity.

"What's the state of the engine?" he asked Lin.

"I don't know. You didn't hire me for my mechanic skills. I'm surprised it works at all, seeing as the last mechanic we had said we'd blown a gasket or piston head."

"So we'll need a mechanic if we want to go further. Food?"

"Well enough, though much of it has gone bad since your…holiday."

"Fuel, fresh water, how's the equipment doing?"

"In working order."

"Can we manage steering and the like with the two of us?"

"Yes, but in an emergency—"

"So a mechanic that knows there way around boats. The less extra heads we get on this damn death trap the better."

As Kazuya shrugged off his shirt to shake off the muggy humidity of the warming day, he caught Lin's smile growing.

"I take it we're going after the little lady?" he said, and Kazuya could almost hear his silent laughter.

"Until I decide otherwise," Kazuya flashed a confident smirk. "Our objective in coming out here was to prove the existence of mermaids, after all. Doesn't mean we have to tell the world where they are."


	7. Harry, Yer a Wizard

**I have a Christmas present for you all! For today until the 20th, "Out of Duat" is FREE! From me to you. :) Thanks for reading, and be sure to pick up your free copy on Amazon!**

Chapter 6

After the first brunt of awe wore off to leave common wonder, Mai both wished she had several more pairs of eyes to see everything. Instead, she kept her eyes to the sand, unnerved by the merfolk who dropped whatever they were doing to stare. Murmurs picked up in her wake, and she couldn't help but notice the little differences between herself and these merfolk. The most obvious was her tail fin. No other merperson had yet to have anything as fancy and flowing. Rather than feeling beautiful, she felt superfluous and eccentric, like a girl with purple hair going to a conservative Catholic church. Perhaps that was why they were staring.

Then, of course, there was Naru's baggy shirt. The fins on her forearms were also longer and more flowing then any of those around her. Some hardly had arm fins at all.

She looked up when Vovo pulled her into the cool shadow of the stone archways of the cliff side palace. All the windows were oval and decorated with carefully cultivated rings of pink, blue, and yellow coral, from sea sponges to fern like fingers. Inside she expected to once more fall into pitch darkness, but out of the gloom came round globes hung from the walls, like Chinese lamps. On closer inspection, Mai found, to her delight, tiny luminescent jellyfish in all the colors of the rainbows.

She didn't notice she had stopped until she heard one of the mermen, the speckled one, chuckle. When he said something, pointing to the lamps, she pulled away sheepishly. He didn't look particularly angry, though. Rather, the freckles around his eyes crinkled, like crow's feet, and he floated up to take a smaller one down, which he came down to offer her.

"Norr'k," he said, with a curious click at the end, akin to a dolphin. She tried to repeat it, but ended up just making all three men laugh. He nudged her hand with the globe and she took it with a heated face, smiling down in delight at the tiny glowing jellyfish within.

For the first time, Vovo let go of her hand, allowing her to hold her glowing globe for comfort. They surrounded her, but not in an intimidating manner, even if they were all obviously stronger and a head taller. Rather they simply urged her on into the depth of the stone hallway, which branched off—mostly up—into different paths, all lit by the crystalline globes of jellyfish.

"Wonder what Naru would think of this…"

At long last, they reached a tall, wide curtain of weaved seagrass and gleaming squares of something Mai couldn't decipher. Too bright to be shells. The mermen once more seemed amused by her scrutiny and allowed her to get a good look before pulling the curtains aside and nudging her through.

Whatever she had seen up until this point had nothing on the chamber she entered. Her jaw dropped, and she almost dropped her globe of jelly friends.

High above at the top was a small hole which sunlight poured in like a spotlight. It's light, however, never reached the bottom, as it was swallowed up in the turquoise glow of crystals lining the dome like walls like beams in a cabin. Mother of pearl speckled the dark rock in between the beams, reflecting and coloring the light given off by the crystals. The chamber's floor had been smoothed flat and then laminated with something like polished obsidian, which gave it a dark, mirror-like quality.

And up ahead, sitting atop her curled silver tail, sat an old mermaid with beautiful white hair that floated above and around her in long streams that swayed with the breathing and gentle movement of the sea. She had a peculiar necklace, done in the skin tight fashion of the other jewelry Mai had seen, but different in the fact it held to a huge, star shaped amulet of ivory.

Several other older mermaids sat around her, all in varying shades of faded jewels and precious metals.

But what caught Mai's attention was the elderly mermaids silver tail, which flared about her like a silver peacock's fan.

Her hands shook around her jellyfish, which glooped as though nothing were wrong. Their light reflected like tiny shifting glowsticks in the dark floor beneath her.

All three of the mermen bowed their heads and swept their tails up to touch their foreheads with their fins. Mai was just scrambling to get her own tail out from beneath her when the old, regal mermaid spoke up in a glassy voice like orca song. Vovo responded, and Mai could see him uncurling through her fins from the reflection on the floor.

A hand cautiously reached down to lift up her chin. Big fingers. Gentle fingers. But Vovo's eyes were on the silver mermaid as he spoke, who eyed Mai with a piercing, quick-silver bright gaze. Her council of elder women stared down at Mai as well.

Mai hugged her globe even tighter. She suddenly felt like a five year old clutching to a teddy bear.

Vovo finished his report, and silver woman nodded and gestured to Mai, who was then nudged gently forward by the boyfaced giant. Hoping she didn't accidentally swim face first into the crystal dias out of nerves, Mai eased forward till she reached the round platform in which they all sat. The silver woman seemed satisfied with that, and started speaking words, slowly and carefully.

"…spreche, speak—"

"Speak?" Mai repeated, her heart picking up a bit.

She smiled. The effect turned her from stern matron to grandmother in a moment. "You speak English, then?"

Mai nearly fainted in relief.

"Yes! Oh my gosh, you have no idea—I've been dying to meet you guys, I didn't know there was any mermaids, I mean, merfolk other than me! And your city—how did you make this palace?" Mai clapped her mouth close as several of the matron mermaids laughed. She blushed, then realized she was still clinging to the glob of jellyfish like a teddybear and held it out to her. "Um, I'm not trying to steal your lamp, I just thought…"

Her voice failed her.

But the silver mermaid's smile was still kind. "Thought what, little one?" She had a strange, lilting accent that sounded reminiscent of New Englanders Mai had heard on TV, but a bit more precise.

Mai ducked her face down. Little one indeed, she probably was acting like she was five. "I grew up in the desert so…I never got the chance to watch…jellyfish." And when no one tried to interrupt her, she added. "I never knew they could glow."

When the silence continued, she peeked up to find that no one was laughing now, and that the kind smile of the silver mermaid had faded a little to a pursed frown of confusion.

"Desert?" she repeated. "I am sorry, perhaps it has been a while since I have used this language. What is that again?"

Mai explained the best she could what a desert was, and the woman's eyebrows shot up with alarm.

"You were raised on land?"

Vovo spoke up from behind her, as though sensing the topic of the conversation. She listened intently before turning a pitying gaze to Mai.

"You poor thing," she said. "You poor, desperate little thing. How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

A burst of shocked mutterings came up from the matrons. They cut off short at a raised hand from the silver woman. The pity had mixed with a pained sort of grimness.

"Your change to your true form has been rather recent, hasn't it?"

"Yeah. Is that normal?" asked Mai, setting down her jellyfish globe in an attempt to win back an appearance of maturity.

"Only for one of your bloodline. Do you know who your parents are?"

Mai wove her fingers together. "Um, my mother was Tabitha Tamiyama, but she never told me my father's name. Said it was some kind of secret."

This oddly seemed to please her. "Very wise. Your mother must have been one of the few humans with true honor. May I ask where she is now?"

"She died about a year ago."

Another deep quiet and more pitying looks which Mai didn't think she entirely deserved, but what could she say? Don't worry, the death of my mom wasn't that hard on her? That would be a lie. But she'd been getting along fine without her? Also a lie, unless having opals tortured out of your eyeballs was considered a good life.

So she answered the questions the silver woman asked of her, such as her name, where she went after her mother's death, and what had happened after the onset of the transformations. By the time she had finished the story about the Triple A and how she had been snatched out of Naru's ship by the mermen, she couldn't read any of the expressions on the severe, lined faces of the burnished matrons. Even the silver woman had grown tense and still.

After a long silence, in which Mai pulled on her fingers nervously and watched the jellyfish bounce around in their lamp, the silver woman sighed and pulled a strand of her long, white hair behind her ear.

"Come here, Mai. Come sit in my fins. You have endured more than someone twice your age can be asked and have come a long way, and I'd like to have you close." Her words turned back to the clicking, buzzing consonants of the mermaid language and the three mermen left. Mai looked a bit forlornly after the disappearing bulk of Vovo as she awkwardly paddled to the silver woman's side and allowed her to pull her within the folds of her flourishing silver tail fin. The fins of her forearms tickled Mai's sides as she held her almost uncomfortably close.

The other matrons clustered in as well, expressions soft, and their hands reaching for her. Fingers brushed against her copper tail fin, her short hair, and her arms.

Soon Mai was surrounded by them, all trying to give her feather-like touches, as though to comfort her. A violent trembling started up from Mai's gut. She bit her lip at the sudden urge to cry, either in fright at the strangeness or to release the utter misery of the past year.

"Mai," they murmured, bottom lips trembling and blinking. "Mai."

Mai clenched her hands against her chest. "I-I-Is this how you normally greet newcomers? I mean, um, those who are raised h-human?"

The silver woman smiled sadly. "No. Try not to be too hard on them, little Mai. They're hearts are breaking for the return of a most beloved princess, and they haven't had much of late to be tender for."

 **Be sure to pick up your free "Out of Duat", by T.S. Lowe ebook on Amazon! Merry Christmas!**


	8. You Can't Pick Your Family

**An update to remind you that today is the last day you can pick up my Christmas present on Amazon. "Out of Duat" by T.S. Lowe FREE! Yay yay poop and skittles. So remember to drop by and pick up your free ebook.**

 **Nar.**

Chapter 7

Kazuya vaulted off the yacht the moment a dock was in sight. His feet hit the boards hard and he had to almost roll off the other edge to break his fall. His entire torso and face itched with peeling, browned skin.

"Lin!"

The taller Asian man tossed down the rope. Plastic buoy balls cushion the sides of the yacht from the blunt edge of the dock. A few men crab fishing at one end had jumped from the thump of Kazuya's landing and scrambled up to help on seeing the teenager straining to pull in the none-too-small sailing yacht.

"Woa, kid! You gonna hurt yourself!"

Kazuya didn't spare them a glance, just threw a length of the rope in their direction, which the men took up like the hose to a fire.

A good deal of hollering later, they managed to get the yacht tied down and properly docked, so the men could finish giving Kazuya incredulous looks.

"Is it just you and that fellow on this ship?"

Kazuya, who wasn't too fond of nosey, stupid questions, just grunted in their general direction and tried to not get his fingers pinched while getting the gangplank settled on the dock.

But the crab fishers started standing on tiptoe, desperate to see who else could be inside.

"You're kidding," said a rather hairy companion to the first. "You and that Chint sailed this monster by yourselves?"

At a low-level glare in their direction, they got the idea, gave him their regards, and scuttled back to their crab baskets. A voice in Kazuya's head that sounded a lot like Mai told him he could have at least thanked them for helping, but he was too tired and hot to care.

Once he was sure the knots would slip, he climbed back onto the ship and retreated to the darkness of the kitchen with his laptop, where he updated his job posting with the number of the dock. Lin stepped in minutes later.

"I'll go get food," he said.

Naru nodded. "Got the card?"

Lin flashed the blue Mastercard and left, leaving Kazuya to impatiently wait at his job posting. Just a mechanic—any mechanic—would do. They couldn't wait here for the triple A's goons to find them. But Kazuya's gut twisted unpleasantly, for the chances of finding any mechanic ready to drop everything and go for a questionably month long journey at this last minute notice would be nigh impossible. Also, while Kazuya was well enough off with money, he had spent a good portion of it on buying and outfitting the boat's party room with a large tank. Large, two deck sailing yachts, no matter how old, didn't come cheap, even with ugly off-white paint jobs and questionably reliable engines.

When his foot started to chatter against the floor, he shook his head hard and decided to do more research on the Triangle to distract himself. The empty, raw feeling had yet to leave him, and a small part of him still expected to walk into a room and see Mai with her big chocolate eyes and intuitive smile.

A loud holler broke him from an article on the history of the Burmuda island. An hour and a half had passed without his notice, and he almost passed off the noise as seagulls.

"Yoohoo! Mr. Shibuya? You in there?"

He jumped out the kitchen door and composed himself just in time to not clothesline himself on the railing.

Down on the dock with an old army rucksack slung over his shoulder was a black haired, bespeckled youth. The second he saw him, Kazuya didn't like him. He didn't know if it was the ratty Hawaiin print shirt, stringy cut off shorts, or his dirty flip-flopped feet, but in that moment of first impressions Kazuya saw the kind of person he use to always avoid on college campuses.

The guy grinned a wide, toothy smile on seeing him. "Heya! Is this Mr. Shibuya's boat? I'm responding to a posting he had for a last minute mechanic?"

"That would be me."

"Well, ahola! Still need a mechanic?"

Kazuya gave him another one over. A mechanic? A boat mechanic? This kid? He didn't look much older than him.

But, then, the kid hadn't said anything about Kazuya's age (yet), so he'd do his best not to do the same to him.

He invited him on board and met him on the front deck where the gangplank ran off. The frumpy, sandy kid kept his happy-go-lucky grin on like a grocery store sticker. He stuck his hand out.

"Osamu Yasuhara, but call me Yasu. Less of a mouthful."

"Kazuya," he said gruffly. "What experience do you have with 1990 450Cat engines?"

"1990?" Yasu let out a low whistle. "Bad year for the Cat450s. No wonder you need a last minute mechanic. Oh, sorry, I got loads. Worked on boat and car engines with my Pa while I was growing up. Just finished up tech college for basic mechanics, but I'm afraid I left town before they could mail me the paper. You can call them if you like. South Oregon Community College."

"Resume?"

"Sorry. Sort of got the bare necessities." He pointed a thumb to the knapsack. "Been trying my hand at the old hippie traveling—a little adventure to tell the grandkids. Got loads of stories, though you get some real weirdos when you're hitchhiking, you know?"

Every bit of common sense was screaming at Kazuya to turn the kid away. Not only did he look like a hobo, but he more or less had just told him so! He even had a five o'clock shadow and the smell of gasoline and sweat radiating off of him like chemical fumes. And what kind of idiot goes to a job interview without a resume? Especially if you didn't email it before hand? He could have gone to a library and typed one up at the very least, maybe even stepped into the bathroom and attempted to clean off the layer of dirt on his tan, grungy skin.

Yasu must have sensed a bit of what he was thinking, for he added, still with that too-cheerful smile, "You don't have to pay me much. I'm mostly in it for the babes. $100 a week with whatever food you're up to giving me. I even have a sleeping bag in here too. That includes maintenance and the extra deck slave, should you need it. You do have a pretty big girl, here." He let out an appreciative whistle at the creaking, yellowing yacht.

Kazuya stared. Though his opinion of him was still at an all time low, one hundred a week for a full-time yacht mechanic and deck-hand was unheard of cheap. But, then again, what he was looking at was dirt cheap in every sense of the word.

Loud pattering of boots on dock drew their attention to the tall Asian man running to them, followed by two rather breathless helpers who, like him, had their arms full of provisions.

"Feds!" He shouted. "Looking for a Shibuya!"

A chill crawled up his spine and he quietly cursed. Two hours, at most, and they were already on him? Couldn't they give a guy a break?

Yasu's eyes had widened and his smile vanished to gawk. "You have the Feds after you?"

Could Lin have spoken any louder? Then again, it didn't much matter who knew they had been here. Once they left shore they'd be gone.

"Throw it all in the kitchen for now," Kazuya shouted before leveling a serious look at Yasu, who was still gaping. "We'll make it $200 a week if you can do all you say and you forget what you heard."

But an even brighter grin was splitting his face.

"Are you kidding? Hell, I'm so down! Feds? Shit, this is going to make history—"

"Great, you're hired," Kazuya already regretted it. "Get down to the engine room and get it firing, we leave in seven minutes. I trust you know where it is?"

Yasu saluted him. "Aye aye, sir!" He set at a run down the deck, yipping, and to Kazuya's surprise, opened the door to the below deck engine without hesitation. Maybe the moron did know his way around ships.

Lin stepped out of the kitchen to let the other two helpers of his drop off the food. Kazuya gestured to him and he ran down to help him with the gangplank.

"That man and woman, where'd you get them from?"

"They worked at the store and offered to help."

"Know how much they're getting paid there?"

Lin frowned. "Kazuya—"

"Forget it, I can guess."

Before his assistant could stop him, he ran down to the kitchen. The yacht was supposed to be manned by at least four people, after all.

He caught the two whispering to each other over a bag of rice the woman still had a hand on.

"You two, know anything about sailing?"

The man, tall and blond and looking to be in his late twenties and wearing a green store apron looked up in surprise. "Uh, kind of a hobby, actually."

"Good. How does $500 a week sound? Food and board included."

His eyes popped. "$500…!"

"For a deckhand. We're a research vessel, totally legal, but I don't have time to prove it to you. You accept the job, we're leaving now."

The poor man had to sit down at that, winded by surprised. As he opened and closed his mouth for words, the red-haired woman besides him jumped to her feet.

"You don't even know who we are? How old are you, kid, and what makes you think you can buy people just like that? Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

"What I can, and the same job offer goes to you. If not, you better run, departure's in five minutes."

Her eyes also went round as saucers. "Wha—have you even drained—life jackets—weather—"

"Yes or no?"

The man tugged at her pencil skirt. "Ayako, this might be what we've been looking—"

"Come to your senses, you stupid man, we could die! Look at the kid, he could be sixteen for all we know and smuggling drugs! You're not honestly going to believe him about being legal?"

Kazuya was losing his patience. "Look, if you must know, I'm trying to find the girl I love. She's the one the Feds are after, now yes or no before I throw you overboard myself!"

He instantly wished he hadn't said anything about 'love' as the woman melted and went starry eyed. Instead of answering, she just did the fish impersonation the man had. Kazuya took a step forward, ready to haul her out the kitchen. Girl better know how to swim.

The man jumped up to stop him. "She'll go. We're in."

"Good. Report to Lin, he's the one you helped."

"Wait, don't we have any time to pack? I need a swim suit and—"

"What did you not understand about now? You'll have to wait until we hit the Bahamas."

The man brightened. "Bahamas?"

The woman, Ayako, also seemed to cheer up at this and she even jumped into motion to run back out the kitchen. Kazuya waited until the man had gone as well before leaving the kitchen and walking down the length of the deck to get to the door which Yasu had taken. He clenched his teeth as he half jumped, half slid down the length of the narrow stairs.

"Yasu, get that engine going."

"Hold on to your tits, Boss, she's low on oil. There's probably a leak somewhere, so don't plan on going too far. And you got more fuel than that, right?"

"We'll get to it. Is there anything I can do?"

Yasu pointed a finger to the other side of the monster engine, where the grease splattered yellow wall began. "Fill up the gas tank with as much as you can. Her timing's off, so the fuel efficiency is going to suck ass. It's probably been guzzling holes out of your wallet."

"Timing? I was told a piston was blown."

"Did they have a pressure tester? If not, we'll know soon enough once we get this beast going."

As Kazuya only had a faint idea what a pressure tester was, he got to the fuel and said a silent thank you to whatever God was listening that the kid wasn't a complete qualified idiot…yet.

On the outside of the yacht, the squeak of cushion buoys against the shifting boatside echoed in the engine room. He could vaguely hear the thumping of shoes as Lin untied the boat and then made a running leap back on board.

"Won't someone notice?" asked Yasu.

"Not if we're fast enough." And if those nosey-helpful crab fishers weren't around.

Yasu let out a high pitch cackle that made Kazuya stare, but he just continued cranking on the starter for the engine, which then exploded into apoplectic life.

"On the run from Feds, this is sick!"

Kazuya wondered if this kid was right in the head. Then realized he probably should think too much on it, as that same kid was on his boat with his hands in the combustion engine.

The door on deck swung open with a squeak. "Kazuya, best you stay down there just in case! I'll radio when we're off harbor!"

"Got it!" The door slammed closed.

"Who's the Chink anyways?"

"Lin," he said dryly. "And he's Korean, and if you like your flesh the way it is, you'll remember that."

"Right, right. I'm just white, just so you know. Might be Scott-Irish, because one time I picked up a chick with my accent impression. Wo! Let me tell ya! Who knew chicks digged that, eh?"

Kazuya sighed. He was definitely going to regret letting this kid on board.


	9. Meeting Lost Family is Awkward

**I'm playing with the idea of giving this story a week or two breather to give people the chance to catch up. I do sort of update a lot. Did you all get your Christmas Present all right?**

Chapter 8

The top they gave her was more of a vest and brazier in one. Made of tightly woven tiny shells of varying colors, it had a smooth, scale mail sort of fit and hugged her breasts up and close. It had wide straps that spread from the tip of her shoulders to an inch or too from the curve of her neck, and there was one particularly bright purple shell where the right strap met the body. She fiddled with it as she huddled against the round sponge bed, where she had been told to wait by the silver mermaid.

And, well, even if the woman turned out not to be Mai's grandmother as she said to be, she was still Maitre Chief of this particular tribe of merfolk. Or, in other words, she was a queen, and Mai the lost daughter of her youngest son—and apparently her only granddaughter.

She twisted at the purple shell. It was really no bigger than her fingernail, and it was one of the larger shells in the blouse. She couldn't help but wonder at the craftsmanship. But, then, if you didn't have leather or wool under water, shells made sense. And, while she thought on it, the other matron mermaids who had been with her grandmother at the council had worn similar tops, though theirs varied with shell patterns and how long of sleeves they had. Those that had sleeves past the shoulders were made of a sheer, flowing material that Mai didn't recognize. They had also worn swirling belts of that same flowing material hemmed with glimmering fish scales of varying colors. One had been left for Mai, but she hadn't a clue of how to put it on, or even if she wanted to. She hadn't seen any of the other mermaids in the town wearing them, and her fancy goldfish tailfins already made her stand out enough.

Still twisting the purple shell, almost like a nervous new twitch for comfort, Mai looked about the bedroom she had been left in. It didn't look too much like a normal bedroom on land, but it didn't look too different either. There was something like a mirror, except it took up half the ceiling and Mai could see her pale, nervous looking self whenever she looked up. The walls had bits of that same glowing crystal, combined with globes of jellyfish, and the floor was the same polished obsidian. It had no windows, and she guessed that was appropriate given anything could swim out or in, but she missed the sunlight. However, it had also occurred to her that, for one living in the seas, it was only natural to get use to darkness, especially when humans took up any shallow, bright waters in sight.

Even as she thought that, she shivered. Her fingers looked almost blue with cold. Would that ever change?

Even as she thought that, a rumble, as though some dinosaur had started to snore below the palace, started up. Just as she thought she'd be unable to hold down the complete panic, a little flap of porous, volcanic rock near the floor in the far corner opened up and bubbles shot into the chamber, where they floated to the top and disappeared. Annoyed with her fear, she forced herself forward. She didn't have to go far before she found out that the water that shot out of the flap was heated, and happily stuck herself within its stream. Bubbles tickled past her on their way up.

Naru would love this. He'd probably be completely lost to her and just spend the whole time tapping at the walls and writing notes on the bed without even remembering to enjoy the heat.

Naru…now that she thought about it, did she even know him enough to say he'd do that? The Triple A hadn't provided the most normal of settings for people to get to know each other.

And, right now, she couldn't even say where she was in the vast ocean. How would Naru find her? Would he bother to find her? He had been trying to bring her to this place in the first place.

Before her thoughts could finish their course, the thick seaweed door curtains parted and the graceful silver form of the aged queen slipped in. Nevertheless, the weight of the unthought words weighed down in her chest like lungfulls of sodden cotton. She didn't know if she was happy to see the woman or not, and in a flash of raised gray eyebrows, Mai knew the queen realized that as well.

"I can understand your apprehension, Mai. From what Vovo said, your rescue frightened you possibly more than your captivity—"

"I wasn't a captive."

"As you said, but whatever those men said you have to take with some degree of doubt, no matter how well you may know them. We haven't sacrificed what we have without good reason, and many of mankind who were trusted caused the death of thousands of our own."

Mai looked down to her fins. Already she could see a trend with her new grandmother. The old woman had barely met her, but already she was assuming she knew Naru better than Mai.

The old queen fell quiet for a breath. When Mai saw the billows of silver fin in her vision and felt the warm, silk soft hands raise her face, she prepared herself for the worst and instead saw eyes flanked by lines that neither spoke of laughter or frowns. The grey shone with the pearl-like tears that would never fall.

"I'm sorry," she said through trembling, thin lips. "Already I'm making the same mistakes. Please forgive me for assuming, little Mai." She dropped down, hands and all, to curl her fins beneath her next to Mai in the warm stream of water, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. "You do look so much like my Roan. You even have his colors—brighter, of course."

"Brighter?"

"Because you're a girl," she said, as though the fact was delightful rather than matter of fact. "I'm sure you've noticed by now that males tend to have subtler colorings, while females are much brighter and bolder. Until we grow old, that is." She chuckled dryly, then stopped, eyes still bright, lips still trembling. Then she bowed her head. The movement brought strands of her ever long hair wisping past Mai's arms.

When the silence stretched longer, a part of Mai that had frozen the moment the mermen had snatched her from Naru's grasp warmed a bit. She blinked hard, taking in the woman before her one more time. Silver, goldfish fins, long haired…and small. Smaller than she had first appeared, all arrayed and framed by long fins and hair and counselors.

Mai dug her cold hands beneath her arms and pressed them to her sides. She didn't want it to be awkward. She doubted the queen intended to make it this way. She had told Mai to wait while she saw to some things and promised that all her questions would be answered, but as Mai looked at the aged woman, now much smaller than Mai wanted her to be, she felt sorry for what she had thought before about her being demeaning. Maybe she had assumed too soon.

Without meaning to, the first question she thought came out of her mouth.

"Are you really my grandma?"

The queen lifted her head and gave Mai a gentle smile.

"Only one of my line would have fins such as yours," she said. "And, as all of my remaining three sons have never once left for the shallow waters, nor have any of them born daughters, and since you bear such an incredible resemblance to Roan, how can I suppose otherwise?"

The way the queen had talked about Roan up to this point hinted at a past tense, and Mai was almost afraid to ask, but ever since she had seen the city of mermaids sprawled before her, she had wondered if she would be meeting her father soon, and what might happen after.

"My dad, he's not around here…is he?"

Her smile turned sad. "No."

Mai felt the stuffed-lung feeling constrict. "So he's dead?"

"Nobody knows. He hasn't been seen in eighteen years. Another reason I can only see you as his. My adventurous boy, set on changing the world, vanishes and eighteen years later a poor girl raised by humans appears with his colors, shape, and my own rare tailfins? There can only be one reason, and…I'm sorry for how I may have come off at first. I admit, I didn't know how to treat you. I was, dare I say, nervous."

Mai tried to return the shaky smile back to her grandmother. She once more lifted a cold hand to Mai's cheek. With the barest of touches, like a feather, she traced the curves around her eyes. Then, slowly, as though afraid to spook a fish, the elder mermaid wrapped her arms around her shoulders. Mai couldn't help but notice how thin and fragile they felt. And to think, a moment before this woman had scared her.

Trembling, feeling her own eyes start to burn, Mai slid her arms awkwardly around her too and wished she could have done it with more familiarity. Then, when the warmth of her grandmother's old skin started to sink in, the aching which had lingered with Mai since the nightmare of the night before dug in deep and she clung on tighter, finding it suddenly harder to breathe. When she opened her mouth to explain about Naru—about her mother—or even to ask the million of questions she could have asked, a weak little whimper came out instead. Rather than pull apart, her grandmother held her tighter and stroked her hair, as though she had known her all this time after all.

"I knew God had a daughter waiting for me," she murmured, her voice tight with emotions. "Please forgive me for being so formal and dry, I was too surprised—too scared—they didn't hurt you, did they? The humans?"

Mai was a bit to overwhelmed by relief to say anything besides blubbering about Naru rescuing her and how he had been trying to bring her here, to where the other mermaids were. Whether a word of that was understood, she didn't know, and for once she wasn't too worried about her emotions being a problem or dealt with offhandedly.

She did ache for Naru's clumsy attempts at comforting, though. He always worked so hard, maybe harder than he should.


	10. All Boys Have Lewd Dreams Period

Chapter 9

All the months of searching paid off. He was back home, in his favorite study, getting ready to attend a party held by his parents on his behalf. The tie he wore slid across his fingers, bright blue, as the ocean and sky had been as they swallowed him whole.

"You look good in a tux."

Her voice wrapped him in warmth far better than any fire or blanket ever could, and he didn't try to hide its glow as he turned around to the vision that stood in the doorway. Resplendent in a form fitting lavender dress that flaired out into waves at her knees, Mai made some part of him he had always trusted to be solid tremble. Her hair was brushed and curled about her cheeks, devoid of sea crust, and her face held no traces of bruises or tears.

It was like not getting enough air, looking at her. But he couldn't look away.

"I was afraid…" he caught himself, flushing. He didn't just say that, did he? He was never afraid.

"That you wouldn't see me again?" she said, as though reading his thoughts. "Stupid scientist, you knew you'd find me. You find whatever you need to. Isn't that why you call yourself an investigator? A detective of mysteries?"

He smirked. "You're sounding eloquent."

"Shut up. I do have brains."

"Don't say that. You're cute when you're stupid."

She pouted, honestly offended, but he could only chuckle. It was just as he remembered it, and seeing that expression meant more to him than the rising color in her cheeks or the way her hands clenched at her side. Even if they got in the most atomic of fights, she was still here; still here, safe.

Without seeing his own strides, he was across the room and had her in his arms. Her breasts pressed full against him, and as soon as he thought it he had his mouth to the curve of her neck. She sucked in a breath.

He pulled back just far enough to brush his lips against her jawline. "You aren't going anywhere."

"I thought I told you not to boss me around? Narcissist."

"Not quite," she had a taste to her. He wanted to put a name to it, but the more he focused on it the less he could taste it. He couldn't smell her either. But she felt so warm, all wrapped against his chest, curvy, with just the right amount of softness that begged to be nuzzled.

He didn't remember when she had taken off her dress. All he knew was that she had and then wiggled out of his arms with a tiny coy smile. He had followed after her like a dog for its treat, every ounce of his world renowned IQ gone in the face of her skin, her presence, and those hot chocolate eyes.

Then his stomach jumped with a sudden drop. Mai gave a cry. Bubbles blinded his vision. The ocean's hush turned to a roar that snapped him back to attention. He couldn't see her, he couldn't feel her—flashes of corpse white arms reached out to take a glimmer of copper into the darkness, far far far from his touch.

"Kazuya!"

No, not again. He thought he had found her. He had yet to ask—yet to figure out how anyone could have such an effect on someone like him, who prided himself on his intellect.

Wait, when did it get so dark? How was he breathing? He should be drowning, the ocean had swallowed him whole!

"Oy, Bossman! We got a problem!"

The last face he wanted to see brought him back to reality, and with a lewd grin.

"Dream'n 'bout your girlfriend, eh?"

Kazuya tried not to let his irritation show as he sat up and pushed the idiot Yasu away from his bed.

"You said something about a problem?"

"Yeah. We're out of fuel, and your co-captain can't find the card. You dreamt something pervy, didn't you? I can tell. Had a roommate with the same look on his face when he had this dream about being trapped in the playboy man-"

"Yasu, if I threw you overboard, no one would find your body."

"Jeeze, there's nothing to be so mean about. It's not like you can help what your subconscious does."

"I'll tie a spare anchor to your feet," Kazuya didn't let his face twitch once. "Tell Lin I'll be there in a minute, or that's a promise."

The frumpy twenty-year-old lost his smile and crumpled back towards the door, eyes wide.

"Right. Y-yes sir."

Once in blessed solitude, the door shut tight behind him, Kazuya ran his hands down his face several times and through his hair. Eye dust rubbed out from his eyes, he shut the dream up in the space dedicated for forgetting and got ready for the day.

Out in the early morning air, Kazuya was greeted by a stern Lin, who had one of his hand-made swords over his shoulder.

"How was night watch?"

Lin grunted. So it was passable, but not the best. "Woman complained a lot."

As she hadn't ceased to do since she had gotten on to his ship. She made Mai look like a third-world citizen being put into a mansion. "How far until our fuel stop?" Then they could dump her.

In answer, Lin walked to the prow of the ship. Kazuya followed, thoughts on a cup of black tea and some eggs on toast. Eggs and bread was part of the groceries Lin had managed to bring on board before their getaway.

At the front of the ship, where the double deck of cabins didn't block their view, Lin pointed to the harbor within sight. It was small, part of one of those off road hard to reach fishing towns. Their old yacht would stand out in size, but at least it was grungy and old enough to not stand out too much among the finer, newer vessels probably owned by the rich who enjoyed the town as a vacation spot. Kazuya could see why Lin had chosen it, though. Feds would have a hard time finding their way to this little cove let alone be able to hide. They'd see them from a mile away.

"We prepared to dock?"

"Takigawa's ready at the steer. Yasu says we have just enough gas to get in, but I need you to help me take down the sails and monitor the starboard, have the buoys ready and such."

Kazuya raised an eyebrow. "Where's Ayako."

"She's asleep." And by the tone of Lin's voice, he wanted it to stay that way.

This actually made Kazuya smile. While easy to annoy himself (whining was, after all, one of his greatest pet peeves), annoying his assistant was a bit harder. Lin had a special talent in turning off his sense of hearing, in a word. Kazuya assumed he had developed it in the jungles of Mongolia, where some guerilla tactics employed the use of rattles and screaming to disorient and frighten their opponents. Apparently, a woman's rattling of lack of proper housing, from the plumbing to the floor to the size, didn't hit the right decibel or level of disorienting.

"Did you tell them about Mai?" Kazuya didn't know whether he wanted them to or not. They had been too busy getting the boat in the water and out of sight to do much talking, and when Takigawa—the tall blond who had accompanied the whiny woman on board—had finally broached the subject of why Kazuya and Lin were being chased by the Feds (understandably tentative as he did so), Kazuya had only told him to copy and paste your average paperback thriller and get back to work. He hadn't intended to tell anyone about his feelings for Mai, and having blurted it out in his haste he had hoped they would forget about it. Not that he was embarrassed, but mostly because he didn't care for the imaginations of others to get involved, especially the perverted git Yasu.

Lin just looked at him and gave one of those straight-lip smiles. Kazuya wasn't impressed. Knowing Lin, he had ignored all their questions or answered in monosyllables.

"I take it you want me to stay out of sight while you get the gas."

Lin nodded. "And give me definite coordinates as to where to go as well as a weather forecast. I've done my fair share of sailing, but not in open waters or in a storm. We usually stuck near to shore."

Kazuya's stomach clenched a bit as he was once more reminded why he had tried to hire an experienced crew in the first place. They had only intended to stick close to shore in their original plans, but storms at sea could capsize even the most experienced of sailors.

And Mai was just one mermaid in a vast ocean.

"Why is he smirking?"

Yasu had reappeared from the other side of the boat. He had a forced smile on his face, as though trying to make a joke out of it.

Kazuya just ducked down his chin with a self-satisfied chuckle.

"Those of a higher intellect relish the challenge," he said. "I don't expect someone like you to understand."

Yasu frowned. "Hey, I'm the reason that your engine not only works, but is even better than it was brand new. I'd like to see you do the same thing—oh! Wait! That's why you hired me in the first place, isn't it?"

"It's more a question of preference than capability," said Kazuya with a sniff. "There's a reason grease monkeys tend to be blue-collared workers. Now, if you're done trying to argue with me, secure the engine room and kitchen for docking. We're heading in."

"Right away, oh great one."

Kazuya ignored the kid's dry sarcasm and made his way to the starboard side of the ship while Lin took the portside. Kazuya and Lin had managed to dock their beast of a ship the first time through a mixture of Lin's amazing capability to do the impossible in harrowing situations and God's mercy. It would take all of them to safely steer the yacht into harbor without damaging it or other ships.

 **If you managed to read my book "Out of Duat", please leave a review to let me know what you think. Also so other people can find it as well! Unless you'd rather I be suffocated in my sleep by the fluffy arse of Jim...**


	11. Wait, Reverse Harem? That Can't Be Right

**Because it's a new year and I'm nice and because you petted a cat with your face. Well played, reader, well played.**

 **REVIEW!**

Chapter 10

Grandmother explained to her what she could over dinner, which was the first underwater meal Mai had ever had (and eaten in the royal kitchens and away from prying eyes, no less, so Mai could learn how to eat without everyone laughing at her). It was some weird stew poured into a coconut, and then speared with a sort of one way straw thingy. Guess it made sense, as anything fluid would probably float away and blend with the water.

She sucked on it as her Grandmother set down the rules Mai was to live by:

1\. Mai was not to go outside until she learned the customs or accompanied by her grandmother.

2\. For no reason whatsoever was she to go near the surface.

3\. Other than those who her grandmother brought to her, or vice versa, Mai was not to be in contact or socialize with any males.

At this, Mai choked a bit on the stew, which tasted not unlike clam chowder, if just a mite more fishier.

"What's wrong with guys? Don't tell me," she thought back to how kind the 'rescue' team had been to her—even going as far as to bring down a globe of jellyfish she had shown interest in—and got a really nasty squirm in her stomach.

Grandmother's raised eyebrows didn't help. "I'm sure even you should have noticed on your decent that there are quite a bit more males than there are females, by their coloration, that is. Dark, duller tones for males, the bright light colors for females."

Mai tried to think back, but it didn't take much. Her grandmother was right. Even looking over the city the spots of color had shown out in the moving specks of fishtails. Now that she thought about it, there hadn't been that many women who greeted her at the end of her decent either.

"So, they're all not, you know…rapey, are they?"

Mai did not appreciate the look of amusement that came to the elder's face.

"Not exactly. We are a, what's the term…goodness, it's been so many years. Matriarchal society? While men and women are created equal it is through the woman's line that the family name is carried and it is the woman who take executive positions. Men take charge only in times of war or similar circumstances. Men are also expected to provide for their wife. With this being said, I highly doubt any man is going to risk forcing himself upon the only royal princess, but…" the wry smile spread, exaggerating the lines of her face and giving her a somewhat ghostly appearance. "You are far from unattractive, not to mention you can have multiple husbands."

Mai really did choke this time. She ended up hacking clam chowder to dissipate in the water ahead of her. The lone cook and scullery boy looked over in concern.

Her grandmother, on the other hand, laughed.

"Was waiting for that," she snickered.

"So you were just joking?"

"No. I was being completely serious. I was just looking for an excuse to tell you so I could see your reaction. Humans don't work this way, so I wanted to see how you took it."

Mai blanched. "So I'm going to have to…have to have multiple—"

"Goodness, no. Do what you like, dear, just know it isn't like a free ticket to adultery. There's specific customs you need to follow, and you can only have two."

"You sound like a tour guide. Have you had to, um, teach lots of human raised humans?"

Her grandmother folded her fingers together. "Not for a very long time, but at one point, yes. It is one of our duties family's duties."

Mai sipped out the last of her chowder, letting the conversation fall there so she could take a closer look at the 'oven' the Chef was using. What part she could recognized comprised of a volcanic vent, with curious adjustments made to the middle, where she had watched the cook make the chowder using something that didn't look unlike a one holed bowling ball. Even as she watched the cook opened the clamshell and crystal door with a 'pop' and slipped in a skewered and season stuffed fish into the boiling water within. After hooking the skewer onto sort of rubber looking grabber stuck to the side of the chimney, he closed the door and slipped off the fluffy oven mitts. They were the first furry thing she had yet to see.

'It's like being sucked into a fantasy novel, or some weirdo rpg,' she thought.

"So…can I ever go back to the human world?"

The stiff silence that followed drew Mai's attention back to her grandmother. The white lipped, bug eyed look she was giving her startled her enough to drop her coconut, which, since it was nearly empty, floated up and out of her reach.

"Has nothing of your situation gotten into you yet? Didn't you just tell me you were held captive by a group of humans who tortured you for opals?" As she said this she gave a violent shudder, but kept her bug eyed look on Mai, who couldn't help thinking could have passed for a crazed witch glare from a fairytale.

"Not all humans are bad! I got rescued by one too—he was even bringing me here!"

"As is good and all, and I'm grateful, but if most humans were like that, do you think our kind would be hiding away near volcanic vents and courting with extinction? Mai, we are the largest city out of only five in all the oceans, and even then we barely come up to twenty thousand." She let out a heavy sigh through her teeth, closed her eyes, and rubbed her forehead, as though attempting to smooth out the wrinkles there. "Mai, please, trust me when I say I understand that humans aren't all bad. In the beginning we were made to live besides them, but after a thousand years of…mindless slaughtering and being the victims of their greed…"

But Mai had stuck to the sentence before that. "We were made to live besides them?"

Her grandmother lifted her face to give her a look above her limp hand. "Tell me, Mai, why do you think there are almost little more than twice the amount of mermen then there are merwomen?"

Mai looked at her grandmother blankly. She hadn't really thought about it.

"Um…hunting? Mermaids are the only ones who can produce opals anyways." Unless mermen had a pregnancy equivalent.

The queen shook her head. "While mermaids were more often the ones lost to hunting, it isn't just because of their gender. For whatever reason, when merfolk mate amongst themselves, there usually comes up to be two males for every one female born."

Mai wrinkled her nose. "That doesn't sound healthy. Um, evolutionarily speaking." Was that even a word?

"It does cause its fair share of problems. Free males are not only unable to reproduce, but since they have natural inborn instincts towards violence and ambition, civil unrest and criminal activities are harder to suppress. A bored young man is a greater danger to a society than many outside sources could ever be."

The cook behind her reopened the vent-oven and took out the fish, with eyes melting up from the heat. The merman flicked off the excess fins and eye-drippings with a short bone knife and set the fish inside a flat, wood-looking box. Guess cooked fish would float away as well, wouldn't they? Not to mention get cold.

"So…what does this all have to do with living with humans?" Mai asked.

"Well, for whatever reason, if a mermaid mates with a human, the child is almost always female."

Somehow, rather than surprising Mai, it made all the hanging loose ends in her head start to click. It was why the Triple A never mentioned mermen and why they always brought in human males for the mermaids. They never had to worry about boy babies.

Grandmother smiled as she recognized the comprehension on Mai's face. "I'm sure, during your soujourn on land, that you noticed most myths about merfolk were about mermaids luring young sailors into their arms. This isn't so far from the truth. When I was a little girl, every ten years merwomen went to the surface to meet with traveling humans. Of course, even then the tradition was dying, as the missing humans didn't go unnoticed."

A chill went up Mai's spine. "You drowned them?"

Her grandmother shrugged. "Our foremothers did not, but I never went with the few mermaids daring enough to go to the surface, so I don't know. Humans were outlawed even then, so they went in secret, and some may have in order to protect their families. I do remember, however, how many mothers kept their girls from even going near the surface, for if their father's were human, they would change once their fins dried."

"Not all merpeople swap into humans?"

She chuckled. "'Swap,' I've never heard that term. English has changed much since it was taught to me. No. Only those with a parent who is human can change. It isn't something like hair color or scales that is carried down through the generations either, as the next generations have not that ability either. It is all quite curious, but I'm sure you'll understand in time. God has his ways of keeping everything in balance."

The cook, after adding some relish and another coconut of chowder, slipped the meal in front of the silver woman with a bowed head. She gave him a curt nod and slipped out the fish from its box to nibble on daintily. Mai watched her with a frown. Something didn't quite add up.

"If we need more girls and mating with humans is suppose to be how we survive, why is it so bad if I go back to Na—my human friend?"

The fish was lowered with a deep, dimpling frown. "You love him?"

Mai blanched. "I-I didn't say that! I'm just saying—"

"Good. I wouldn't want you to go through that heartbreak. Humans cannot be trusted, Mai. I'm sorry, but I'm sure you can understand."

"But if we're dying off without—we're part of the human race! If what you're saying is true, how can we just cut ourselves off? Can't we just keep doing what our ancestors did with sailors?"

The hard look her grandmother quailed Mai enough to shut her mouth, but not the hot twist of confusion and a curious aching fear she didn't quite understand. The elderly woman sighed, her face relaxed, and she once more raised her free hand to massage her forehead.

"Please, try to trust me and understand. If we are a part of the human race, as you say, then I can say that no one deals with those different and those who bring on sudden change." She hesitated, biting her lip as though reluctant to say what else was on her mind, but after taking a glance into Mai's eyes, she sighed again and put down her fish. "Humans…humans have the benefit of fire on land. For centuries we have watched their tools of war grow from beneath the surface. Don't repeat this too lightly to others, but…we are…weaker, in a way, to humans. We cannot build their loud tools of fire and thunder. And even in a day and age where we traded and mingled with the sailors who passed through our waters, we were distrusted, we were…creatures from another world. Frightening. We are too little now to risk being discovered, especially with how powerful human society has grown."

Even the cook and scullery boy seemed to have caught up on her weary, dropping tone. They exchanged glances and the cook slid over to put a hand on her shoulder. Neither probably understood English, but the weary smile she gave him reassured him and he went back to preparing more fish for the vent.

Those sad eyes turned back to Mai, whose stomach had dropped to her toes with the force of a cinderblock, and it hurt. She couldn't fight against that logic. She couldn't fight against the need to protect what little they had.

But—she opened her mouth—but her grandmother stopped her with a hand.

"I know what you're about to say," she said, wearily picking up her fish. "We need the humans to survive. You think we might die out. But this isn't the case. And," a dry twitch of a smile crocked the side of her mouth. "I am sure there are still those among the desperate and the wild who sneak up to the surface to court with humans. They either make it back, or end up as subjects to the stone buildings of opal harvesting humans."

Mai looked up sharply. "You know about those?"

The queen took a bite of her fish. After swallowing she said, "Of course I do. It's a matter of state security."

She had acted rather unsurprised when Mai had told her about escaping the Triple A. But that was besides the point. "You know about the mermaids trapped there? You know where they are?"

"More or less."

"And you've done nothing? You've just left those girls in there?"

Her grandmother looked to the ceiling. "Yes, because I'm a cruel heartless seventy-five year old politician who thinks nothing of young women being raped and tortured for their tears."

The harsh sarcasm worked as effectively as a slap. Before Mai could think of anything to say to that, the queen snorted and went back to her fish. "Honestly, how do you think those mermen were able to find you? They were probably following you all the way out from that—" she said a grumbled clicking phrase Mai couldn't understand. "Each kingdom is only allowed to have a team of 4 or less monitoring each discovered bunker, but only to rescue those able to first get out themselves. I hope you can at least understand that, having been in one of them yourself."

And Mai did, even though she didn't want to. Triple A had an electric chain barrier from it to the sea, but if there were more places like it, they might not even be connected to the ocean. Not to mention constant monitoring, spotlights, and God knows what. They had even gone as far as to sending a team to sneak onto Naru's ship in hope he'd discover where the rest of the merfolk had gone. They probably even expected some merfolk to try and rescue the others.

But then Amanda and her unborn baby came back to Mai's mind. She hugged her arms and squeezed them.

When a cool hand touched hers, she looked up to the sad, old, silver coin eyes that said they knew what made Mai's fingers dig into her arms.

"If any of them reach the sea, Vovo will be there. Those four were set apart and have dedicated their lives to standing watch, undiscovered. They will never marry, and they only come home when a daughter has been rescued as well." Her hand slipped away, but her sad, comforting expression did not. "And, I hope you meant it when you said you didn't like this man, because...the means used to rescue daughters atop a vessel often does so by capsizing the boat. It is more likely than not that your boy has drowned."


	12. Life and Death on a Boat of Clowns

**Yo, if you've had the chance to read "Out of Duat," please leave a review on Amazon. I'll weep and smear snot in my pleading.**

 **Other than that, enjoy your weekly update!**

Chapter 11

"Marco."

"Polo."

"Marco!"

"Polo—Oy!"

Kazuya closed his eyes to the glow of his laptop and took a deep breath through his nostrils. He tried to focus on the smell of earl grey tea, the hum of the CPU, the rock of the boat against the waves.

"Come here Marco Marco, your pretty face better not be under the water."

"Yasu, polo."

"I said two Marcos—three!"

"Polo."

"Oh, come on, don't be like—AH HA!"

A wild splash, a loud grown man's yip, and then boisterous laughter.

From across the table came a loud, annoyed snort.

"You'd think they were children," said Ayako, and even with his eyes closed Kazuya could see her flipping back her red hair for the fifth time since she had sat down across from him. Why didn't the idiot just tie it up if it kept getting in her way? "I swear that Yasu swings in a different direction. Any chance I could look through your room for some nail polish? If I keep working with the ropes like this I'm going to have potato chips instead of nails."

Kazuya took a deep inhale. Lin needed this crew. They couldn't risk finding another. It was a miracle they had found one at all. Remember that.

After refocusing on his happy things, he opened up his eyes and went back to where he had been in his article.

- _the baby girl was born alive, but died an hour afterwards. Doctors recorded the time of death and the reasoning being 'severe sireneomelia.' Though I searched diligently for the mother to request permission for the release of the infant's body for my collection, she was nowhere to be found, and the doctors could tell me little as to what had happened to the body. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but think how curious it was that in all recorded cases of sireneomelia, the patients are female._

Another clue, but not a helpful one. He already knew humans could sire mermaid with one of the merfolk, but that wouldn't help him find Mai. Even so, he summarized the story in his notebook along with a reference. Passing down the article, he moved on to find the next. Maybe he had to think outside of mermaids and the Bermuda Triangle. Perhaps the coral reefs of the Bahamas? The Triangle did bottom out there. Hadn't there been natives on the Bahamas when Columbus had come through? Yes, there had, that should help.

"Marco." Yasu pitched his voice up high and girly.

"Polo."

"Marco, come to me, my angel of music!"

"…Polo."

A swish of hair across a denim vest. "What is he trying to do? I can't believe Takigawa can stand that little runt. Did you hear my question about the nail polish?"

Kazuya raised his eyebrows at her from over the laptop. "No." Back to his search. What was that tribe's name again? He should know this. He could remember a myth from them concerning the blue holes, but merfolk couldn't hide in those. Nothing could, as after a dozen feet or so the water became devoid of oxygen and life. Still salt water could do that.

Ayako let out a loud, weary sigh. "That sucks. Isn't there something fun to do on here?"

"Marco Marco Marco Marco!"

"Polo."

"Aw, you said my name last time. Come on, Takigawa."

"Polo."

"Oh Marco, wherefore art thou Marco!"

Ayako's boots squeaked as she shifted her legs. "Hey, Kazuya, isn't there—"

He snapped his laptop closed. Prickles of heat ran up and down his neck and arms. It took all his self control not to slam the kitchen door behind him as he left, but the lot questioned him enough because of his age without him acting it.

From the waters, Takigawa caught sight of him stomping up the steps to the Captain's quarters.

"Time to board yet, Cap?"

But Kazuya ignored him and made sure to lock the door behind him. Lin would take care of it once he was done switching beacon codes for the ship in order to disguise its identity.

Though he had intended to work up here instead (why he hadn't started up here in the beginning was because the cabin was a heat trap, A/C or no), but once he sat at the fold out metal desk from the wall and started it up, he found himself staring at the screen. Like it had several times throughout the night, his mind seized up and his fingers went cold. He tried taking several deep breaths, hoping it would work as it had before in bringing him back, but a rock like constriction filled his lungs.

He didn't even know why he was so upset. Sure idiots got on his nerves, but he'd made it through college just fine. Those three he could have ignored easily. But for some reason, the laughing, the ridiculousness of it all, the unprofessionalism—

He pushed off from the desk and dug the balls of his hands to his eyes. They were shaking. He had never trembled so much in his life as he had the past week. What had Mai done to him?

Mai…

Laughter from outside leaked through the door and he had to restrain the urge to open the door and scream at them. That alone frightened him, as the last time he had wanted to do that was when he was five. What was wrong with him?

But forget that, what was he doing? Risking the lives of strangers to save a girl who was probably just fine? With her own kind, even? Going through this expense—going to this extreme—he shouldn't be doing this, but he had to. He tried to remind himself of the challenge, excuse it as research and groundbreaking, but the flat freeze of his innards powered his need to yell until the world righted itself.

Because those idiots shouldn't be laughing. They shouldn't be complaining about—about nail polish or rules of some moronic children's game, they should have their noses in books, picking up facts, scrambling just as desperately as he to find her, his Mai, his needle in the haystack. It was so much more vastly important, and their lighthearted nature sounded as out of place on his boat as it would at a funeral.

Yes. Yes, that's why it annoyed him. But that was ridiculous. They didn't know Mai, nor had he expressed any of his feelings for her, and never would. No one should look into his heart and see just how much of a love-sodden pathetic fool he was. No one should touch this shameful weakness of his. They'd tell him to forget her anyways, anyone would. Mermaids belonged in the sea, and she hadn't even given him a sign that she felt anything more than friendship for him, if that.

And when the first storm came, when the first crew member fell overboard, what would be his excuse then?

A memory of a glittering Mai in the waves, hair in curls about her cheeks, rose and was shoved away. Yet that brief second of contact was enough to weaken his knees and push him back into the flimsy metal folding chair.

Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

Something clicked.

"Move and I shoot."

Kazuya froze. A female, but not Ayako. But he hadn't seen anyone, had she hid under his bed? How had she gotten on board?

The hard cold of what could only be a gun barely pressed into the back of his skull.

"Where is she?"

His mouth went dry, but he pushed on a smirk anyways. In the dim scratched out metal of the desk, he could see the blurred dark figure behind him. She was petite, at best.

He licked his lips. "If you mean the mermaid, I couldn't tell you." It came out cool and confident, just as he had expected it to. No one, gun or not, would get the better hand on intimidation on him.

A bright pain cracked across his head as she suddenly beat the butt of the gun against it. He coiled, gagging, vision dark with stars.

"This isn't some cute interrogation from the movies, Shibuya. I have satellite pictures of her on your vessel and enough bullets to kill every crew member here before they could even breathe. Oh, and p.s., you'll be dead too."

"Then you'll just have to make us all extra dead, because she fell overboard during some freak storm. What, satellite didn't tell you that?"

A hand as cold as the metal of the gun took a fistful of his hair and yanked back his head so far he choked. Through the dissipating stars he could make out the cool gaze of his would-be-assassin, who looked more like a Chinese porcelain doll than James Bond. The thick leather body suit rigged with pockets and belts spoke otherwise.

"You're going to hell," she purred. "Condemning four innocent people to death to save your pride."

The gun barrel appeared between his eyes. He couldn't make out the caliber, just that it was a pistol of the same gleaming black as her hair.

Rather than being cowed, however, he clacked his teeth into a snarl and fisted his sweaty hands.

"I'm done with morons," he hissed.

She smiled. "Wrong answer."

The pistol went off just as Kazuya sent a chop to her wrist with extreme precision. The bullet ricocheted off the floor and into the ceiling with a shower of plaster. Years of training kicked in and within a blink of an eye, he locked her arm behind her, kneed her stomach, and landed a sharp elbow to the right kidney. The metal chair clanged to the floor, almost as an afterthought.

Her gun dropped at his feet before she did, gasping.

"An email would have done better," he said.

And then he kicked her again, just for sure measure. She did look like a professional, after all.

 _Lin is going to have an aneurism._


	13. Cause Crying in Peace is For Losers

**I'm putting up Wednesday's update early because a storm is coming in and my internet isn't all that reliable. Hope you like it!**

Chapter 12

Mai spent the rest of the day with her grandmother, who mostly taught her and showed how things worked in her new underwater home. She slept fitfully on her soft sponge bed, with Naru passing through her dreams with his eyes rolling up into his head and glass globes of air drifting up from his mouth like jellyfish. The last one had him sinking down into the endless depths until she woke up and curled up in front of the warm stream of water in her room once more.

In the morning she ate in the kitchen alone, more feeling the curious glances of the kitchen work (all male), then seeing them. It was a curious sweet porridge that tasted of coconut. When she left a kitchen hand caught her floating coconut container and she drifted out awkwardly.

She hadn't gotten far before three of her grandmother's council members found her. One spoke enough English to tell Mai they had wanted to help her get ready for the day and she let them pull her back into her room, which was starting to feel more and more like a basement den than anything.

Mai never thought she'd miss sunlight. Growing up in Arizona, one learned to worship rain clouds and the nighttime cool.

Once they had fitted her in another tiny shell and fabric top, wrapped the skirt like belt of filmy gossamer material, and combed through her hair, they let her wiggle away on the renewal of the promise that she wouldn't leave the palace. They had told her their names, yet Mai didn't know whether she would remember or not. Her head felt too full as it was.

Thus she found herself curled in a hole of sorts above one of the vents in the eastern hallway. The darkness and solitude soothed the raw part of her she didn't entirely understand. Beneath her the stream of warm bubbles shot out every now and then above a hallway lit by globes of jellyfish. Every now and then, one of the merfolk (usually male or one of the council members), went past. Mai had her goldfish fins and the veil-like fabric of the belt pinned between herself and the wall so she wouldn't be spotted.

 _Sand would feel nice now,_ she thought. _Warm beach sand between my toes. Guess they're right when they say you don't miss it until you can't have it._

Dark blue eyes flashed in her memory and she flinched.

 _Drowned…_

Mai put her hands to her face. The pads of her fingers were smooth. No more wrinkly raisin skin.

A clunk sounded in the hallway beneath, but she paid it no heed. No one would find her here. It was safe to think about him now. Naru…her Kazuya…hers? Was he ever hers? Wasn't this for the best? He had been so awkward, so…

It didn't matter.

The clinks continued. The hum of the vent she sat on went quiet. The cool of the dark smooth stone pressed in on her skin in an oddly comforting manner. She could feel her eyes tingle, but knew no tears fell, even as she let a quiet sob pass through her mouth and echo down through the gills on her sides.

Something touched her arm.

She jumped and banged her head against the ceiling. Clutching her head and whimpering, she squinted through the pain just in time to see a hand withdrawing. A young man, perhaps in his early twenties with a dozen or so belts wrapped about his torso, hips, and arms had his black eyebrows puckered in concern. Tools and pouches hung on the belts, giving Mai the impression of either a gunless Rambo or a dull Christmas tree. The next thing she noticed was black—black scales, black hair, black eyes, and dark brown freckles sprinkled on his white shoulders and in a thin cloud across his pale cheeks.

On meeting her eye, he moved even farther back and averted his gaze. He said something, but of course, she wouldn't understand.

"I'm sorry, am I in your way?" she asked, carefully slipping out her fins.

At the sight of them, unfurling in all their superfluous length and layers, the dark merman visibly paled further beneath his freckles, if that were possible. He started to blubber, pointing to his tools around his belts and the vent and looking as though he was seriously considering running for it.

Mai sighed. For anyone to be nervous of her was as stupid as being a mermaid princess in the first place—ugh, just thinking about it made her feel like a badly written Barbie movie.

"It's fine, look, do you speak English? Eng-lish."

He bit his lip and glanced up at her from beneath his short lashes. "Little."

This surprised her. "Really? Whew, for a minute there I thought only old people knew English. Am I in the way of your work?" She gestured to the vent and then at herself, hoping that helped.

Still looking as though he'd rather not be there, but unable to leave, he framed the beginnings of a few words then awkwardly nodded. Mai then slid off and sunk back down into the hallway. He watched her go, biting his lip.

"I sorry," he said, his words heavy with an exaggerated version of her grandmother's accent. "Sad?"

She shrugged. "Yes." No point in lying about it.

Rather than just nodding and going on with his work with the vent, the merman frowned, his eyebrows once more puckered, and he sunk down to something closer to her level, although he kept a careful distance from her.

"Why?"

She shrugged again. "I might have…I lost a friend. And I'm alone. A-a-and…"

She hadn't meant to, she thought she didn't have much to be embarrassed for being a mermaid, and thus couldn't cry, but a leftover whimper tagged itself onto the end of that last 'and.' She slapped her hands to her mouth, but that didn't stop the second from rising.

This was why she had wanted to be alone.

She turned to flee, humiliated at the thought of breaking down in front of a stranger, but his hand caught onto her wrist with a clink of his belted tools. The moment it was there, it vanished, but his uncertain voice replaced it.

"Don't leave. I can fix later. You…alone time, yes?"

With burning eyes and hands still pressed so hard against her mouth she threatened cutting her lips on her teeth, she nodded.

Hesitantly, and with his eyebrows still puckered up into a little peek, he reached towards her. She didn't see what he was trying to do, as she had closed her eyes in an attempt to save some of her humiliation. When gentle hands scooped her up, tail and all, she nearly kicked out in surprise. But by the time she realized he had picked her up, he had already tucked her back into her tiny nook above the vent and darted several feet away.

"It-it get better. Losing friend—it get better. Time."

Now color flooded his cheeks. He probably knew how ridiculous he sounded, and the serious shape of his broad mouth and thick eyebrows gave Mai the impression of a man who seldom made a fool of himself.

But, despite herself, she couldn't help but smile.

"Thank you. It's okay, I got what you were trying to say."

"Stay. As much you like. I can fix later."

"Yeah. Thanks."

He gave her one more glance beneath his eyelashes, underlined by his blush, then swam away with the clanking of his many tools.


	14. Spy to a Board

**R &R folks. Hope your week is more devoid of rude dummies than mine. **

Chapter 13

"Masako Hara. You part from your name surprisingly easy for a secret agent."

The doll like girl rolled her eyes. "Please, sir, you demean me. Secret agent?"

Kazuya just mirrored her cold, dry smile. "There's always spy, a failure of one, at that."

"That is yet to be said."

Which was quite funny, seeing as Kazuya and Lin had tied her caterpillar style to a broken closet door. At the moment she was propped up in the tank room like some tiki pole. Every now and then her eyes would flash to the sloshing water within, where Mai had first been kept.

Scattered behind Lin and Kazuya was the rest of the crew, who were just there for the show.

"We should probably keep a watch on her," said Takigawa. "Take turns. No telling what she might do."

"That's a given," said Kazuya. "But I never said we were going to let her live."

A harsh, pregnant silence. He could feel the eyes of his new crew on his neck and didn't have to see their faces to register their horror.

A bit of water sloshed out from the tank as the boat sliced through a particularly big wave. Lin exchanged a glance with Kazuya before heading out to man the wheel.

"You're a school boy, not a killer," said Masako, though he didn't miss the shift in her gaze. She probably had heard of the last team sent after him and Mai. Little did she know that it was Mai's singing that had drowned them all, and it had been in self-defense after they had murdered another mermaid in front of her. Kazuya had only a limited hand in it.

But whether she knew that or not, he kept his hands relaxed and his expression cool as he ducked his head to meet her coal black eyes.

"I do what I have to, and you had intended to put a bullet to my head for a mermaid. I don't even think the softest of conscience will twitch at me shoving your nose into your brain should you try it again. My disarming you should tell you enough about my ability to go through with that threat, even for a professional like you."

Her elegant jaw tightened till he could see the tendon bulging from her neck. If possible, the girl's eyes went blacker till no shine reflected from them.

But it was Ayako who spoke up.

"Wait, did you just say mermaid?"

He was so tempted—so very tempted. But he could only push his luck so far with these people, when their trust of him was already tenacious at best.

"Yes, mermaid. She wanted to kill me when I couldn't tell her where a mermaid was."

A cruel smile broke across the china doll girl's face. "Now that's rich, where'd you pick up these planks, Shibuya? Walmart?"

"Hey, I'm at least Target class!" said Yasu, who had been unusually quiet through all of this.

"Hold on," said Takigawa, who also had been uncharacteristically quiet. "That girl of yours—is she…?"

"More or less."

Ms. Hara started to laugh. "Oh man, you really have lost her, haven't you? You weren't lying? Well, shit, guess I'll just be on my merry way, if you would—"

"No. I'd rather not. Triple A has enough guns on me that I can't see, I'd at least like to keep you in sight. Though that nose through the brain deal is still in force."

"What, so you're just going to leave me tied up like this?"

"Until we reach another port, yes, unless you want to be on your merry way in open ocean, then be my guest."

The girl groaned. "Aw man, how long was I out? Don't answer that, I'll take the plank. Next port, then?"

He gave a curt nod. She gave a weak smile.

"Maybe you're not as bad as you're trying to be, little nerd."

"Maybe. Let me know how it feels after three days."

Her eyes widened. "What? Are you kidding me? You can't treat a girl like this!"

"Not my fault you snuck on board on our way to the Bahamas. Now, if only you had just been more civilized."

She open and closed her mouth, not unlike the fish gawking looks Takigawa and Ayako had given him on their first meeting, but then she just settled for a cold, expressionless glower.

Without another word all of them but Ayako left, as she had volunteered herself to take the first watch. Apparently she had found some nail polish and wanted some time on her butt with it anyways.

Out in the sun and metallic waves, Yasu and Takigawa scurried to block his path to the control deck, where he had been planning on conducting a powwow of recent events with Lin. He barely had the time to glare before Yasu blurted out, "You weren't kidding when you said copy and paste a bad thriller novel, weren't you? You really think your girlfriend's a mermaid?"

Kazuya just raised an eyebrow at him. He didn't think. He knew. "What does that have to do with your job?"

"Well I am getting chased by the feds for it," he said with consternation. "But you can't be serious!"

"He is serious," said Takigawa, who had an entirely different air about him than the baffled Yasu. "Kazuya, look me in the eye and tell me it's true."

This was getting ridiculous. He had research to do. They still had to find the coordinates for where exactly in the Bermuda Triangle they wanted to search. "Look, I don't care what you think, but I don't make it a habit to lie. Also, I have a doctorate in essentially proving myths and fairytales wrong, so I would be the first to tell you if it wasn't true, so if you'd excuse me—"

"Woa, you have a doctorate?" Yasu eyed him in disbelief. "Just how old are you?"

But Takigawa had gone slack with surprise. "Wait, you're not the-THE Dr. Kazuya Shibuya, the one who proved all those shape shifter myths not true? The one Discovery channel did a documentary on?"

This caught Kazuya off guard. He hadn't expected any of them to have actually heard of him, famous scientist or not.

"What of it?" he asked.

Takigawa's jaw dropped, and he did another once over of him. "They said you were young, but…please tell me you just have a baby face."

"I'm eighteen."

"EIGHTEEN?" exclaimed Yasu and Takigawa in unison.

As usual, people's reactions to his age tended to rub him the wrong way. It was as though they expected all teenagers to be stupid and horny or something. Which just brought up the dream he had had of Mai the other night, but he didn't have time to argue with himself about his hormonal sanity. Stiffly excusing himself, he pushed through the gawking young men and marched up the stairs to the control room, where Lin stood at the helm with his attention to a yellow GPS on the dashboard.

"How soon would you say we could get rid of our unwanted guest?"

Lin didn't answer right away, but turned the wheel of the ship around till it satisfied him first. Kazuya was in no rush. The quiet company of Lin's was always welcoming.

"She is the symptom of a much bigger problem."

Kazuya was afraid he would say that. "As in how she was able to find us?"

Lin gave a noncommittal jerk of his head, which said he thought that was minimal, at best. "With technology as it is, especially with your satellite internet, getting found isn't that difficult. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to download what you need before I toss the satellite off board."

"Lin, you can't do that, that thing is our radio too. What if we get into trouble?"

His assistant turned a flat look to Kazuya. What if indeed.

But if an assassin had already been sent after them, and if they had already connected the drowning of all those men to him—but there simply wasn't any proof. They couldn't do anything to them legally without proof.

But Triple A wasn't exactly legal territory, otherwise they wouldn't be situated just within the borders of Mexico.

Suddenly, it hit Kazuya what Lin was saying. If Triple A found them, they would kill them. Masako had already tried to attempt that, and it had probably been more luck on Kazuya's part that he turned out to be far stronger and better trained than she had anticipated.

All their communication equipment had to go.

"We can keep a very basic radio, the antenna is still salvageable," said Lin, as though trying to console his employer. "But it needs to be completely shut down, and we can never use it unless we really are about to die."

Because, odds were, Triple A would be the first ones to find them the moment they cried wolf.

Which also brought up another matter.

"We won't be able to dock at the Bahamas…will we?"

Lin said nothing, eyes forward.

Which troubled Kazuya more than having to throw off the satellite did. Sure they had enough food to last them for a month, and if they were conservative with their fuel, enough for about two weeks. The boat was designed to catch rain water, so they would probably be okay there too. But keeping someone as dangerous as Masako on board for that long—she was bound to wriggle out at some point.

"They can use her to locate us," said Lin.

"We could drop her off somewhere uninhabited—"

"And they'll find her, if they haven't already." This time, the look Lin gave to Kazuya was the closest thing to intimidating that he had ever gotten with his boss. "I would be surprised if she didn't have a tracking device under her skin."

Even though the first thing they had done was to strip her of her gear.

Kazuya's blood ran cold. His mouth went dry.

"I've never killed anyone," he whispered, and his own frailty made his insides writhe. "Can't we just drop her off somewhere?"

"They will find us," said Lin. "They could be here any moment if she does have a tracking device."

"But we don't know for sure, we should at least check first."

Lin sighed and turned back to the yellow GPS, his long hands settling back into their places on the wheel. After a few long, heavy quiet, in which Kazuya ambled to the corner of the cabin where he had last left his laptop, Lin locked the wheel, marked a map taped to the other side of the dash board, and turned the full brunt of his grimness to his boss.

"Your parents hired me to protect you, Kazuya. That will always be my first priority."

Kazuya didn't answer. He had nothing to say. Besides, he had to download all that he could before Lin knocked out the satellite.

When the door clicked shut behind him, Kazuya refocused on his computer.

' _How could you.'_

He shook his head. Mai wasn't here, and if he didn't let Lin do his job, he may never see her again anyways.

' _Is that how you're justifying murder? You really are a heartless narcissist, aren't you?'_

His knuckles locked. Of course she'd say something like that, but why did he have to hear her voice now of all times? Is this what happened when you were lonely? Or was it just another side effect of being hormonally sick in the head?

'It's self-defense,' he would tell her. 'It's either us or her.'

' _You don't know that. You don't even know for sure if she's with them—you have no proof! All you have is Lin's guesses!'_

He swallowed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He must be going mad. Mai wasn't here, that was final. Lin was the only one on this entire boat who knew how to survive in the twisted situation they had found themselves with. And it wasn't just himself and LIn he was responsible for anymore.

His knuckles wouldn't unlock on his keyboard. The article blazed white and black before him, devoid of shades of gray, just like Mai. She was so naïve. Right and wrong, love and hate, it was all so clear and bright to her in a colorless world.

He left his laptop on his chair and shot to his feet.

"Lin!"

He bounced off the railing and down the steps, where he could just see Lin vanishing through the doorway to the refurbished ballroom. He leaped off the last five steps and stumbled to his knees as a wave rocked the boat.

A shrill shriek sent his hair on end.

"Get off of me, you little bitch!"

 **If you've managed to get a copy of my book "Out of Duat," please pretty please leave a review on Amazon! I'm really hurting for reviews. . Though I'm also just really grateful you're taking time out of your lives to read 'The Mermaid and Her Boy.'**


	15. A Love Triangle and It's Only Morning

**Here's an extra update because I like you guys, a lot. You all make writing stories so much fun. Please tell me what you think.**

Chapter 14

Another dinner with grandma, who loaded her with information on her new world. Another fidgety night. Mai could feel a routine in the works. She wanted it to feel normal again. She didn't like the impression of being a visitor to an alien world.

She dreamt of Naru and sunshine; beautiful sunshine, pressed up to her skin like curves of not-quite-too-hot metal. Strawberry milkshakes. Hamburgers.

When she finally got up to see a haggard looking girl looking down from her mirror ceiling, she shook her head hard and slapped her cheeks.

"Stop it, Mai! Getting depressed isn't going to do anything! Besides, look at how spoiled you're being, you could be back in that tank being electrocuted or…"

She had to stop herself, because her mind had skipped to the afterwards when Naru would stroke the skin around her sore eyes with fingers unbearably tender. Or that one time he had clumsily hugged her and begged her to tell him what to do, because he didn't know. He didn't know how to comfort.

Mai wrapped her arms around her tail and smiled sadly into the smooth sheen of her copper scales.

"Silly. You already know how to comfort."

Already 'knew'…

She slapped her cheeks again.

"No moping! You had all day yesterday AND last night! Happy! Happy! Happy thoughts!"

Like how she had a whole new family now! That's right! Her three uncles had come to visit the day before with their wives (Mai was relieved to see they didn't have any 'brother' husbands to get use to). All three had spoken fluent English, although their accents were thicker than her grandmothers, which made their words chirp here and there. Her aunts on the other hand didn't, but they spoke to her through their husbands and were rosy cheek with happiness on meeting her. Her youngest uncle even swooped her up into a hug.

Today she had plans to visit that same uncle and his children, and the suggestion of her grandmother who was eager to help her feel at home.

Mai stuffed her head with images of uncles and little fat-tailed cousins as she wiggled out of her soft night-shirt and into a firm, shell-based blouse. She attempted to comb her short hair waving in the currents, but ended up just tying it into pigtails. How her grandmother managed to swim around with her huge mane was beyond her.

Opting out of the flowing belt/skirt (she didn't want to stand out anymore than she already did), Mai headed out through the stiff seaweed door curtain and down to the kitchens. She fluttered in yawning and waving in greeting to the kitchen staff, who smiled in return. She had just settled herself down when a loud coughing 'CHUNK' came from the big vent oven. The chef, the same grey haired, muddy colored man who always tried to push seconds on Mai, jumped to the door and peered inside. He muttered something like a curse before gesturing one of the two kitchen boys, who nodded and left in a flutter of bubbles. The poor cook was still muttering grumpily as he set a tray of boiled clams and a coconut of sweet porridge in front of Mai. She wished she could say something comforting, but since she had only picked up a handful of mermish, she was left to suck at her porridge and watch the cook and his last kitchen hand tried to fix the oven.

She had just settled in to her first clam when the second kitchen hand returned—and with an familiar obsidian colored merman.

He paused on seeing her, sending his dangling tools into short dances, freckle-held eyes wide. She gave a little wave. He wasn't given much time to recover, however, as the cook barked him over to the oven and shoved the heat-resistant mitts into his chest.

The dark scaled, pale skin young man had only had his head in the oven for a second before he pulled back to unhook a stone hammer and what looked like a giant hook. He stuck himself into the mouth of the oven till the edges almost met the fluttering pink line of his gills. There was a clunk, a guttural bubbling from underneath the floor, and the black merman shot back out of the oven with a sooty, grinning face.

As he explained to the chef and handed back the mitts, Mai quietly catalogued each of the tools and little pouches sewn into the belts. She ached to play with some. Just how did underwater technology work? Did he really need all that just to repair vents?

She didn't realize she had been staring until her line of vision was interrupted by him ducking his head to smile at her, revealing a single dimple on his right cheek.

"Curious?" He stuck a thumb underneath one of the belts.

That one word in English sent her face aflame as it reminded her of how they had met. So much for dignity, but she nodded anyways.

Rather cautiously, as though afraid to frighten her, or perhaps because he himself might be a bit nervous (the cook had shot him a warning look when he had spoken to Mai), he crouched down next to the table, curling his large, long tail beneath him.

"Why don't you just use the stool?" She asked, pointing to the very one he crouched next to, but he shook his head.

He opened his mouth, struggled for the right word, then said, "You are princess."

Mai wanted to drop her face to the table. Oh geeze, don't tell her she had to get use to this kind of thing.

Before she could think of something to make him get off the floor, he started unhooking tools from his belts and laying them out before her.

"Go on," he said.

What was it with mermen handing her stuff the moment she looked curious? First the jellyfish, now this?

But they really were interesting. While the hammer was a simple hard bone holding a stone fortified with braided seaweed and leather, there were pliers with teeth of crystal, something a bit like a tiny bone tripod on top of a wishbone, lines of braided seaweed around hard, teethed black stones, and others she couldn't even begin to guess what they were made out of.

When one of these mystery sticks suddenly started to shine at one end, just like a flashlight, she let out a laugh of delight.

"Don't tell me you stuffed a cuttel fish in there!" She shook it to try and turn it off so she could peer into it. There didn't even seem to be any glass on it, let alone any buttons.

His fingers plucked it from her grasp to show a notch at the other end, which he turned with a fingernail and the light went off. Beaming like a five-year-old, she took it back and stuck her eye into the other end. Nothing but black.

" _Mai_."

Everyone in the kitchen jumped. The repairman shot several feet back, nearly tangling his fins in one of his belts.

The queen stood in the doorway, her yards of hair and fins giving her a silver aura, as usual, and her lips pressed tightly together. Her eyebrows had become sharp needles over her nose.

"What did I say about men?"

"He works here!"

"I know perfectly well who and what he does, but I don't recall introducing you."

Despite his age and size, the dark merman had shrunk back even further, hands splayed beneath him and head bowed low. Even the cook and kitchen hands pressed back in apprehension.

"I-I'm sorry, Grandma, I forgot—"

"How hard is it to remember three rules?"

"But since the kitchen staff are okay, I thought since he worked here—He was just showing me his tools because I was curious! He wasn't doing anything wrong!"

Her grey eyes narrowed at his bowed form on the floor. The cook, looking a bit pale, said something to her. Whatever it was, it made her face soften enough for Mai to breathe again.

"Since Don says he was keeping a close eye, I suppose I can let this slide without punishment. But these rules are to keep you safe, Mai. I will not tolerate you breaking them. No more warnings."

Not like there had been any warnings in the beginning.

The graying cook, his arms crossed tightly over his chest and a tick over his eye, said something else. She just listened, as though the ocean itself whispered. Mai tried to look anywhere else but at her grandmother and wondered when she'd be allowed to go back to eating breakfast scold-free.

But then the queen sighed. "Very well."

She glided in and sat herself next to Mai, the angry lines replaced by her usual softness.

"Since you've already met, and since it would do you good to have someone else who speaks English besides myself and the council, you may speak with him, but only in the kitchen under the supervision of the cook."

You'd think Mai had tried to sleep with him then and there on the table, golly.

Thinking the worst of it was over, Mai cautiously picked up her coconut and went back to sucking. One of the kitchen hands went over the black merman and tapped him on the shoulder, but he didn't move.

"Now that that's out of the way," the queen accepted another plate from the chef with a quiet thank you. "Once we're done here we'll head over to Lucris's. Remember your manners?"

"Don't forget kid's names once they're told, keep eyes down while we're outside, and, uh, something about a restroom?"

Meanwhile, Mai watched out of the corner of her eye as the kitchen hand managed to nudge the repairmen out of his huddle on the ground and out of the kitchen. He glanced her way before vanishing back into the hallways beyond.


	16. So--Does That Make Her a Traitor?

**And here's the weekly update. ^.^ Whew. Man I'm tired. And I feel fat. Ugh. Hungry...but fat...but feeling fat is so stupid.**

 **Hush, Lowe, it will pass.**

Chapter 15

Seafoam green fingernail polish oozed around the footprint within it. Ayako snarled inches from it, her dark red hair pulled back taunt to expose her neck to the blade the petite girl in leather held. She sat on top of Ayako, the ropes that had once held her now frayed and limp against the board she had been tied against.

"Move she dies!"

Lin had settled low, hands held stiff and sharp and eyes narrowed.

Kazuya just stared.

A breath later and Yasu and Takigawa tumbled into the doorway as well just to freeze as Kazuya had at the sight before them. The green glow of the tank didn't help the situation feel any more real.

One of the girl's small knuckles popped as she clenched the mass of red hair.

"Let me off this boat and she lives."

"Wha—" Kazuya cut off Takigawa with a glare. He exchanged a look with Lin, who just nodded to show he was putting the reigns into his hands and would follow his lead. Thus, Kazuya faced the women on the floor with his chin lowered and his jaw clenched. His heart pounded a frantic dance against the base of his throat, but even he knew the importance of keeping his cool in a situation like this. He could handle this. He had to.

Thus, he threw up his hands. "Fine. Walk away. But we're in the middle of the Gulf, days away from the nearest port. And no, we have no life boats either."

"What do you mean we have no—" This time Lin cut off Yasu.

The spy didn't seem to care. Her gaze darted from one person to another as she got off, forced Ayako to her feet with the blade, then yanked her head back by her hair to reposition the knife closer to her throat. A tear ran down Ayako's face as she clenched her teeth against the pain, as the spy had her arm in a painful hold behind her back as well.

The boys scuttled aside as she shoved Ayako through them. Yasu kept looking from Kazuya and Lin as though expecting one of them to jump in, maybe do something amazing.

But Kazuya's mind wasn't on stopping her, but why she didn't even hesitate on seeing the wide ocean before her. He had also just noticed her missing boot, which was where the knife had been hidden. But surely she couldn't hide a way to live in the ocean for days in that skin tight leather suit.

"Wait, can you answer one question for me?"

She turned to push her butt up to the railing, preparing herself for the moment when she'd release Ayako and tip over the edge. The pallor of her skin positively glowed in the sunlight, which also brought out unexpected bruises under her eyes, as though she had gone days without sleeping.

"What?"

"Are you with the Triple A?"

She snorted. "I thought that was given. Who else chases children to find mermaids."

His eye twitched at that, but he caught Lin's attention to give a swift jerk of his hand towards her.

The spy smiled. "Nice knowing you all."

In one fluid moment one could have missed by blinking, she dove over the edge. Before the first strand of Ayako's hair had fallen, Lin had his arms over the edge. Kazuya and Takigawa ran forward just in time to catch his feet.

A wave slapped against the side of the yacht. The girl cried out.

"Let go!"

"Kazuya…" Even though the strain in his voice, Kazuya could hear the surprise and smiled. Just as he thought.

Sure enough, as they got Lin's feet to the deck and Lin hauled his squirming, yowling captive over the railings by the shredded remains of her suit and her hair, the girl had changed.

Where her legs had been was a thick, powerful dark violet tail, with filmy fins. The fins on her arms would be hidden by the long sleeves of what remained of her suit, which also hid the gills on her sides. As Lin wrestled her to the ground and Yasu started swearing, Kazuya admired the genius of the leather suit, which had been engineered to tear during her transformation. It may even dissolve a bit in water.

That being said, it tore still, especially with every effort of hers to squirm out of Lin's grasp. There was a flash of bare breast before Lin successfully pressed her against the deck with his sheer strength and weight.

Yasu was still swearing. Kazuya slapped him upside the head.

"Augh! What the hell, man!"

"Get down to the engine room and get the welder, the portable one."

"You made me bite my tongue!"

"Good, it needed it, now move."

Yasu scuttled away, looking back so often he almost ran there backwards.

"Ayako, behind me, in a small tote behind the tank, you'll find a packet of zipties."

She flinched her eyes back to him from where they had been on the mermaid, a hand to her throat. "Z-zip ties?"

"Hurry, if you would."

She more stumbled then ran, but he'd have to do with it. She had her life threatened a minute ago, after all. Stuff like that could be shocking to the average mind.

"Takigawa? Assist Lin. We're moving her to the tank."

Shaking his blond head, Takigawa cleared his throat. "T-that's a real mermaid…sir."

The mermaid screamed angrily into the floorboards.

"Kazuya," said Lin breathlessly. "Earplugs."

Kazuya hadn't forgotten. "Just keep her quiet till I get back, I shouldn't be too long."

But rather than going to the control room where the box of small green earplugs were, he slipped past Takigawa and headed to the kitchen. There he grabbed salt from the cupboard and knelt in front of the sink cupboard. The thumping of the mermaid's tail vibrated in the floorboards. He squinted at the chemicals before grabbing a bottle of cleaner (not as concentrated as he would like), then grabbed lemon from the fridge.

"Hopefully, this works the same on mermaids," he muttered to himself as he bumped the fridge door closed.

Outside, he dumped out half the bottle of cleaner as he made their way towards them. Takigawa wrestled with the violet tail as Lin kept her torso and face mashed into the floor.

"Looks uncomfortable." Kazuya poured in the salt and clicked it closed with a thumb.

"What is that?" panted Takigawa. "Hasn't anyone told you not to play chem lab with cleaner?"

"Just something to clog up her vocal cords," he swished his bottle around, before slipping out a pocket knife and cutting the lemon in half. "If we're lucky it will also give her some nasty bronchitis, which is always a bother. Kind of like having a knife to your throat."

He squeezed the lemon over the lip of the bottle.

"How do you know—omph!" Takigawa had nearly been unseated from the tail and got a nasty thwack to the chest. He slipped twice before body tackling her bottom half once more. Up on Lin's end she continued to shriek.

Kazuya twisted on the spray nozzle. "A little invention of mine in elementary school. I'd just finished my chemistry courses and wanted something to get my mother's dog to stop barking. Now, Lin, if you would."

He yanked back the girl's head by her hair. Just as the first shrill tone issued from her open mouth, Kazuya jammed the nozzle in her mouth and sprayed.

Expectantly she hacked and wheezed. She was still struggling to clear her throat as Ayako returned with the zip ties to bind her wrists behind her. Only once the end of her tail, right above her fin, was zip tied to the railing did Lin and Takigawa let her go. From behind Ayako came a tentative Yasu, with an arc welder at his side.

"She can't breathe," he said weakly. "Maybe she can only breathe underwater?"

Kazuya held up a hand. "Give her a second."

Soon enough, her coughs subsided to raspy breaths. The exhausted splotches of red to her face didn't stop her from glaring daggers at Kazuya. Her mouth moved, but only air came out. Her eyes widened.

He kept the bottle at ready in case she found her voice, but she didn't, though she rasped and wheezed empty words. Satisfied, he straightened.

"Alright, men. Let's get her to the tank. Yasu, I hope you know how to use that thing. We're going to need to do some adjustments on the feed flap."

With two men at her tail and Kazuya and Yasu at her torso, they managed to do what Kazuya's previous crew did with Mai in dropping the purple mermaid into the tank and locking the door shut. Yasu set to work on shrinking the feeding door Mai had managed to somehow wiggle out of in what seemed to be another age.

Meanwhile, the mermaid curled herself into a corner, her wrists still restrained behind her back.

Kazuya moved the chair over to her corner of the tank and sat down.

"If you hadn't put up such a fight, this wouldn't have been so rough. We might just be on the same side. Now, listen closely…"


	17. Not All That It's Cracked Up to Be

**Your weekly update! As always. ^.^ R &R, friends!**

Chapter 16

Mai wasn't sure what she should be feeling to the crowds of merfolk that had lined up to catch a glimpse of her. Rather than meet their eyes, she looked up, trying to capture a glimpse of the sunlight above. She could just see the surface, crystalline and shifting. It could have been just as unreachable as the clouds.

Her grandmother kept a hand on hers the entire time. The guards that accompanied them were older, and kept long spears in their hands. Mai accidentally met the eye of a curious youth and furtively ducked her head down. A slight nausea twisted in her stomach. Perhaps if her grandmother hadn't insisted on decking her out in all this finery she could have been just a tad bit obvious.

Her grandmother's silvery hair brushed across her arms.

As she watched the pebbly path past beneath her, Mai tried to gather everything she knew about her Uncle Lucris. He was the second youngest of her grandmother's sons, Mai's father being the youngest. He had had bronze blond hair and tarnished bronze scales to match, but a lack of the signature billowing tail fins that Mai and her grandmother had, which her grandmother explained only passed on to the females in her family. Lucris had been the friendliest of her uncles, even going so far as embracing her on sight, but he also seemed to be the least assertive, giving way on a single word from his brothers. He had also been the only one who hadn't been accompanied by his wife.

She should be asking questions. There was so much she didn't know. But words fumbled on her tongue, and she tried to smother her desire to return to the small nook above the vent where she could be alone and warm. Oh how she missed the warm, the sun, the sand, and the feel of her own legs.

They stopped sooner than Mai had been expecting. She looked up to see they were still in the shadow of the cliff face palace and had only swam half a dozen blocks. The house was covered in coral and other water plant life. Mai thought it to look much like a Hobbit hole, dome shape and round door and all. Shutters of woven leather hung open from the windows, and she could see a stream of wavering hot water rising from the chimney.

Lucris opened the door with a smile and a swaddled infant cradled in one of his arms. He greeted his mother, but beamed at Mai.

"Come in and meet your cousins!"

Even as he said it, heads started poking out over the edges of the doorway, each one with varying shades of blond hair.

Lucris scowled and gave a soft growl of an order, and the children scuttled from the doorway. He gave them an apologetic look as he swept aside to allow them in. The four guards took post outside, and Mai was more than happy to close the door on them.

He led them into what could have been a cave like mix between a living, sitting, and family room. A rug of braided seaweed covered most of the ground, held down by stone nails. A few of the dolphin or whale skinned beanbags sat here or there, and a few forgotten toys were scattered in the center. A bookshelf lined with clear boxes of mica and glass held scrolls of paper Mai could only guess as to the substance thereof.

The blond heads of before were connected to four little boys from the ages of three to twelve, each with tarnished metal shaded scales, from burnished bronze to tarnished, almost brown copper. In that way, Mai could see how they were related.

"Mai, these are the boys. The oldest one there is Don, then Venice, Joan, and Reed." Each boy inclined his head on hearing his name, except for the last, who jabbered excitedly in mermish and went spinning through Mai's tail fins. At a glare from their grandmother, he quailed and took to curling up at Mai's side with a big, balled cheek smile.

"And this one here is our little Antonette, our first daughter." He angled the bundle of baby to show Mai the peach fuzz head and bunched fists. She reached out to touch one of the tiny hands and was surprised when Lucris lifted her into her arms with a smile.

"Hold her for me while I get the others?"

There were more? But Mai found herself to enthralled by the tiny person in her arms to much care just how many more children he brought in. While she ran her hand along the velvet fuzz of the sleeping girl's head, the rest of the boys huddled about her, except for the twelve year old, who kept apart, probably thinking it looked more cool and mature to be aloof. More mermish came her way, but she could only raise her free hand in dismay.

Grandmother came to the rescue, speaking kindly to the children. They gave Mai curious and maybe a bit sympathetic looks.

"You no talk?" asked—who was it—Venice.

"Talk!" repeated the youngest, Don.

"I can talk! Just not, um, in your words."

"That what I meant," said Venice.

"That's not what you said, dolt," said the aloof eldest, Reed, whose colorations leaned more towards brown than any of this brothers. "And it's ' _That is what I meant_.' Use your conjunctions and 'be' verbs, will you?"

Venice faltered, ducking his chin down in embarrassment, which sent Joan, the second largest and as blond as his father, whirling on Reed.

"You don't have to be such a know it all, and he doesn't even know what conjunctions are yet!"

"Conjunctions," said tiny Don with a sagely nod.

"You keep repeating random words and you're going to get in trouble," growled Joan, who then turned his attention back to Mai with a charming smile. "So, cousin, just how old are you?"

"S-seventeen?"

Joan and Reed's eyebrows rose high. "And you aren't married yet?"

"Well of course not, why would I?"

"Because…because…" Joan wriggled his fingers together, glancing back at Reed, who just glared at him.

"Don't look at me, you got yourself in the hole, you can get yourself out."

But Mai was confused by something else entirely. "Um, grandma, why do they all speak English?"

"Because they are of the royal line," she said lightly. "As I said before, it is our family's duty to inaugurate those merfolk who are raised on land into our society as smoothly as possible. That means all your cousins are rigorously trained in both English, Spanish, and Portuguese, sense those are the lands we live by."

"But, how—"

"Well, not all merfolk who have the ability to change into a human rush back to the ocean," she said, as though it should have been obvious. "Keeping track of the human world is key to our protection, naturally."

And not even waiting for Mai to finish her question had been annoying, naturally.

Just then, Lucris came back in from the lone entryway, followed by a woman and another man, who looked to be as dark and lanky as Lucris was blond and stocky.

"Mai, I'd like you to meet my wife and brother-husband."

A curvy woman, with some weight still around her stomach from what could have been the recent birth of her baby, swam in. She had a round, kind face and brilliant gold scales and hair. The man that followed after her was a muggy brown, like a cat fish, with a haughty look to his face and arms that looked like they could snap at tree in half. As Lucris introduced his wife as Mei and her husband as Jesh, the man settled his heavy set eyes on Mai, down her body, and then at the billows of fin about her tail, to which he wrinkled his nose.

When he came towards her without a word, Mai half expected him to clobber her. When his too-warm fingers instead pried the tiny sleeping merbaby from her hands, she couldn't help but shudder at the hidden strength that one touch promised.

As Lucris went into Jesh's line of work, as though nothing rude or sudden had occurred, the darker merman handed the mermaid the baby, gave Lucris a nod of his chin and a look that couldn't quite qualify as warm, and escorted the mermaid back into the depths of the house.

The smile on her uncle's face weakened. He dropped the hand he had raised in farewell. Mai caught the older boy's exchanging glances while the youngest wriggled after them with mewls for his mother.

Mai glanced back to see if her grandmother could give her any more clues as to why the atmosphere had suddenly gone so tight and cold, but her expression was as impassive as Lucris's wife's had been.

Lucris gave a weak little laugh. "Try not to be put off by him. He's rather shy, so it takes a while of knowing him for him to warm up to you, and Mei hasn't been feeling too good of late. That's why I couldn't bring her to visit."

They stayed a while longer to play with the boys (little Reed came back sniffling from not getting the Mom time he wanted and Joan had lots of chances to try out his growing English vocabulary, defended from Don by Venise), and after having a little lunch served by Lucris, who seemed particularly keen to know what Mai thought of his cooking, they bid farewell. Mai was surprised when the whole gaggle of boys, even the 'trying-to-be-cool' Don, clustered about to give her a group hug before letting her go.

Mai was just glad that some of the light had returned to Lucris's smile. Even though she had only known him for a short time, the gloom didn't seem to fit him at all.

Her grandmother took her hand as though she were a child as they headed back to the palace. The guard hadn't moved once from their posts and gathered about them the moment the door was closed.

"Grandma," it still sounded weird on her tongue.

"Yes?"

"I thought you said I was your only daughter? I mean, female descendent? Lucris's little girl is already a few months old."

"Ah," her grandmother's lips pursed, something Mai was finding she did often. But she just shook her head. "I'll explain once we're not out in the open, though I'm sure they all know."

Mai nodded and went back to covertly taking in what she could of the sun above her and the little village about her without meeting any eyes.

Once inside the council chamber, her grandmother waved the guard off and guided Mai up to the platform, where only one other of the elderly matrons was on duty. She was a faded pink with short, white hair, and she patted a cushion next to her when Mai drew near.

"Hello, my princess."

"H-Hello." Mai wasn't sure she'd ever get use to that.

Her grandmother took a seat on her other side, her mouth puckering into another little frown as she gathered her long silver hair about her.

"When there are more than one husbands in a household, all of the children are considered theirs. There is no differentiating, even if one has reasons to suspect that one child might be theirs. This is easy enough to understand, as it is difficult to tell the father when there are more than one man that a woman is involved with."

No matter how many times she heard about this practice, Mai's face still heated up at the thought. Once again she remembered the haughty look of her uncle's brother-husband and Lucris's faltering smile.

"That being said," said her grandmother. "Lucrise is in a unique situation in being a member of the royal family. If he had had a daughter, that girl would have had the fins that you and I have. It is the most dominant trait of our blood. And since Antonette's mother is not a member of the royal family…"

"So, you're saying, while usually everyone considers the children to be from all the fathers, because Lucris is your son…" Mai wrinkled her nose. "That's messed up. Is that why what's-his'-face was acting all grouchy? Because he knows Antonette is his?"

Both of the elderly women gave Mai a hard look.

"What?"

The two exchanged glances. This time it was the pink matron, Mary or something, who spoke to Mai.

"It's best to not involve yourself in other's marriages, especially when multiple husbands are involved."

Mai frowned. "I don't understand."

"Don't you?" asked her grandmother. "Tell me, Mai, how are men different from women?"

"I don't know."

"Come now, we went over this. Be blunt if you have to."

Mai could feel her face heating up even more. "Well, they're, um…they can be more violent or dominant? Didn't you say something about being more ambitious?"

Her grandmother actually smiled at this. "I can see you tried very hard not to mention the physical differences."

The pink matron giggled.

"But why does that matter?" Mai pressed, hoping to leave the subject of _that_ for now.

"Because this means, in a situation where a male is forced to share 'territory' with another, this can often cause competition, which can sometimes escalate into conflict."

Mai couldn't hold it back anymore. "Then why in the world do you have it set up this way? I know there's not enough girls to go around, but isn't that a bad idea?"

"On the contrary," slid in pink Mary. "Competition isn't always bad. Families with more than one husband almost never suffer a child's death, have lower cases of illness, and are almost never poor, and without access to the shallow waters like we did in previous generations, this is key. Also, with another to compete for the affections of their bride, there is a natural safety guard in place against the mistreatment of women and children."

"Mary is over domestic welfare," said her grandmother with a proud smile. "You can trust what she says."

Still, despite that being said, Mai couldn't shake off the memory of Lucris's face, or the cool look the haughtier merman had given him. If she had to compete with somebody else for her spouse's affections…

An icky, tar-like pain knotted up in her chest.

"How long has this been going for?" asked Mai faintly.

"Since the beginning," said Mary, eyebrows puckering. "Dear princess, don't look so concerned. They enter in willingly, and the men are happy too. They've been raised knowing this. Aren't there such practices on land?"

"Well, yeah." But switching over the dominate gender of the polygamy didn't make it any better. Not to mention she had been raised in America, not the Congo or wherever they had multiple wives still.

One of her grandmother's delicate, cool hands touched her shoulder. Her silver eyes were soft and understanding.

"It's okay, Mai. Lucris is a good man. He'll figure out his troubles, and he's got some good boys for him too."


	18. Is Infatuation Always Obvious?

**Here's your weekly update! Please enjoy. Oh, and if you've read my book "Out of Duat," please leave a review on Amazon. I'd super appreciate it. Like...desperately appreciate it.**

 **Now, for some R &R.**

Chapter 17

"So…your girlfriend's a mermaid?"

Everyone but Lin looked up at Kazuya. Yasu dribbled beans off his spoon and into his bowl as he waited for the scientist's answer. Ayako chewed a bite of her cornbread and failed to appear casually uninterested.

Kazuya took his time to chew that night's chili and swallow. "I don't have a girlfriend."

"Don't give us that, you said you're out here to find the girl you love," said Takigawa imperiously. "And since we are now officially sucked into this with you—"

Ayako gasped, flecks of cornbread stuck to her red lipstick. "Wait, don't tell me this—does she even know you love her?"

Now even Lin gave him a sidelong glance.

Kazuya couldn't believe he had come to the point where he had to fight down the heat crawling up the back of his neck. Why did she have to make it sound so pathetic? It wasn't like he had had time to confess or anything like that, and even if he had what would it have amounted to?

"With me or not, I don't think my love life is on a need to know basis." He tried to inject as much cool 'drop-the-subject' as possible.

But rather than dropping back to their chili, the dark haired bespeckled teenage boy, the painted red-head, and the broad shouldered man exchanged knowing grins. The only mercy given to Kazuya was that Lin had seemingly gone back to quietly eating his food and ignoring them all.

"She doesn't know," said Ayako, smirking.

Yasu raised a hand to his mouth in mock horror. "Or maybe rejected…?"

"Please, with those looks?" Takigawa gave him a once over and snorted.

"With his attitude I can see it." Ayako wrinkled her nose. "She probably even had a stupid little nickname for it like Smart-Ass or—"

Kazuya slammed down his spoon and stood. All of them flinched.

"For people who pride themselves in being older than me, you're acting unbelievably childish. Mai isn't up for some playground gossip, and I won't let her be, is that clear?"

He clenched his fists to hide their trembling. The warmth of his blood had switched from embarrassment to anger so quickly he barely had the time to reign himself in. Even as he met their shocked faces, he regretted slamming his spoon like some toddler—and right after he had just called them childish.

Not waiting for their answers, he stepped around the table and left.

The moment the kitchen door closed, he open his mouth wide to suck in the chill twilight air. He needed more oxygen to clear his head. His hands were still trembling.

Flexing his fingers out, he took off at a quick walk down to the prow of the ship, where weaves occasional sprayed clouds over the railings. He got as close to the edge as he dared and stuck his head out to the ice. He could hear a sail flapping above him in the steady breeze.

He took another deep gulp of air. To think that the greatest source of oxygen in the world wasn't trees, but the ocean, where algae flourished. His mind went back to this fact as it cleared and he faced a new wave of humiliation mixed with rage. In what polite society was it considered all right to nose into someone else's business like that? It was like they had nothing better to do but gossip about his feelings and speculate on Mai. They could tease him all he liked, he didn't give a damn—let them act like the stupid children they were—but he couldn't handle, he wouldn't stand for Mai to be teased. He would not reveal her to such petty people.

A loud squeaking alerted him to the fact that he had started to grind his teeth without knowing it. He forcibly unhinged his jaw and took yet another deep gulp of air.

No. He shouldn't behave like this. He was the one being ridiculous. It was natural for them to be curious, especially since, as Takigawa mentioned, they were in this together. Kazuya had coerced them from their lives to join this dangerous journey with him. They had a right to know what they were risking their lives for.

But was it really necessary for them to know about his love for Mai? Or to know about Mai herself?

Staring to feel fuddled, despite the fresh air, he pulled himself back from the prow and headed towards the ballroom. It was his turn to check up on the girl anyways. Lin should have left some apples and other water friendly foods on the table, though Kazuya had yet to decide when to give it to the murderous mermaid.

Stepping through the door into the green lit, water rippled room was like stepping underwater.

His shoes made sharp claps against the hardwood. Inside the huge tank that took up the majority of the room the small purple form remained curled up in the same position they had left her. Sighing, he picked up an apple from off the table and went to her corner of the tank, where he once more sat backwards on the chair he left there.

He rapped his knuckles against the glass.

"Had enough time to think it out?"

The girl twitched. He almost expected her to just stay in that same uncomfortable position, but for the first time since being dropped into the tank, she unfurled her tail and twisted to give him an icy glare.

"I don't have much choice, do I?"

He took a moment to wonder at the clarity of merfolk voices underwater before smiling genially.

"You have a choice. Help us and we help you, or don't help us and stay coiled up in this tank. Just so you know I am doing you a favor in this regard. Lin originally came down here to kill you, said something about you giving the Triple A what they need to trace after us."

When she just continued to give him that hard as ice glare, he sighed. Wasn't this familiar.

"Do you actually like working for Triple A?"

"Yes," she said, as though it were obvious. "I get a job with benefits, protection, and all the nice human comforts I'd have to give up if I got sucked down into the ocean with those other hermits. Oh, didn't think that? What did you think? That the dream of every mermaid is to be locked up in hiding with all the other merfolk?"

"I did think of that, but at the time I was a bit more preoccupied with the fact they force young women into hormonal treatments that force their bodies to reenact being pregnant or giving birth to a decayed stillborn, then torturing them with electric shocks for tears that bruise their eyes so severly, their blinded for weeks. Then their locked up in rooms with men to have babies just to continue the cycle until they die at a young age." He wasn't smiling anymore. "Didn't think that?"

She had flinched at every other flat, toneless statement he had delivered. At his question she ducked her head, hiding her face behind sweeps of her short black hair.

"Either way, Mr. Shibuya, there's a sacrificing of freedom." Her voice lowered. "Tie yourself to the ocean floor or tie yourself to the Triple A. Even then, there's no proof that life among your own will be better. I'd rather stick with what I know."

"Then I take that as you won't be helping us?"

Her head snapped up. "I didn't say that. I'll help you find your damn Atlantis, but I'm not promising anything else and I expect you to let me go after that."

"Fine." He would have gotten what he came for anyways, and he could let Lin handle it from there, for better or worse. Kazuya lifted up the apple. "You hungry?"

Her eyes darkened. "Do you expect to keep me alive on fruit?"

"If you play nice we've got some hot homemade chili and cornbread next door. Takigawa is surprisingly talented with his spices, I have to say."

She pulled up her wrists to her chest and swept her tail back around. "While you laugh at me while I try to eat with my hands ziptied behind my back?"

"Now why would I make a lady do that?"

She deadpanned. "The same reason you stuffed a lady into a tank. Did you do that to your mermaid when you found her? Awesome first impression of yourself you made there."

Yeah yeah yeah, he got the idea already. "Mai didn't fire a gun to my head. Now, do I have your word?"

"I already said I'd do it."

"Yes, but I want you to look me in the eye and tell me you're going to do what I need to find them and Mai." And just for sure. "You need to find her too, after all."

"You don't have to lay it so thick." The girl rose up till her dark violet eyes met his. "I'll help you find her. I promise."

"Good." He stood and started to leave.

"W-w-wait, where are you going! What about the chili!"

"I can't get the lid of that tank off myself," he said lightly. "I still got this apple if you need something to tide you over."

"Oh, go stuff yourself!"

Just as he opened the door, he stopped and turned back to the girl paddling idily before the front of the tank. She sent another blood freezing glare at him.

He gave an ice-tipped smile to match her chill. And with that, he went to fetch the crew he had just chastised to help him fish out a mermaid.


	19. Now the Loss Hits Home

**Here's your weekly update! Praise me! Or not...I don't need praise...really. *paws lap sheepishly***

Chapter 18

For the second time, dinner for Mai was a royal affair. However, none of her three uncles or their families came to the grand hall, where a half moon of low, heavy tables had been set out around the dais. Rather, all six elderly matrons, the queen's 'parliament' in a word, came, accompanied by what Mai soon found out was their daughters, and only five of those came, though two looked to be identical twins.

They each took turns greeting Mai and her grandmother. The younger girls, who all looked to be in their twenties or thirties, greeted Mai especially warmly and managed to stick her on a padded seat between the twins with heavily accented English. The low tables filled with fins as they all sat lined up behind that crescent, filling the vast chamber with feminine chatter.

"It's Moneev," said the right twin on Mai's question to where their brothers were. "A feast for only women."

"Held once a month, all over the city," said the left twin before wrinkling her nose. "How far on your mermish are you? English makes my jaw hurt."

Mai tried not to act too embarrassed when she admitted that her grandmother had just gotten her started on yesterday, after she had visited her uncle Lucris. Which meant she knew little to nothing.

One of the girls on the other side of the left twin gave the girl who had asked this a reproaching look and said something sharply to her. The blond girl scowled and pushed herself back as her sister said something with a smart little smirk. A glare, and a flutter of pink fins, and Mai had a new mermaid on her left, one that was a bit older than the twins, but still a lot younger than the matrons looked to be. She had high cheekbones and an even higher forehead, with tight brown curls and a toothy smile.

"Sorry, she can be…" she waved a hand in the water as though to convey the word she could not reach. "Don't judge her too harshly, princess."

"Oh! I wasn't. She didn't do anything wrong."

She bobbed her head in time with the leftover blond and pink twin. "You are kind."

All of the girls seemed rather excited to meet her, so the quick switch of seats turned out to be the first of many as they all took turns shuffling next to her to introduce themselves, though Mai could feel her mind starting to spin with all the names she had already been expected to remember.

When a obviously pregnant girl and the horsey, high faced mermaid sat next to her, the hidden doors on each side of the dais opened and four female servants, probably the only four in the whole palace, fluttered out with arms laden with find flat boxes and twined baskets of coconut containers. Mai inwardly heaved a sigh of relief as the interrogation of the matron's daughters was turned from her to the food and she was allowed to observe and wonder in peace.

The mermish language interested her in particular. So many chirps and buzzing consonants; like listening to French that had got mixed up with a zipper.

Halfway through the meal, a high, beautiful voice belted out a single note like a flute. The four serving girls had returned, and with them a turquoise, dark haired beauty with yards upon yards of the flowing, transparent fabric the court women seemed so fond of wearing over their tails. Rather than as a belt, though, she had it cut and reinforced with black, thin sticks or wires to make elongated, fabulously long forefins and tail fins. She had wave her torso more to swim, but the beta fish like fins trailed after her.

The horsy girl chirped something in mermish and clapped her hands. "Mai, you'll love this. Pay attention, this is usual a dance done by a woman of the royal family."

And Mai could see why. Besides a little extra length, especially in the arm fins, the girl looked as though she were trying to play the part of someone with Mai's and her grandmother's royal fins.

The women at the feat quieted as more voices joined the flute-like singer. The four servants also had rings of mica painted clam shells and drums in their hands, which they brought together in a heartbeat. As a throbbing, intricate song was born, they made a wide circle around the turquoise girl, who had yet to open her mouth.

The song rose to the climax, the girl raised her arm fins.

Then silence.

A chill ran up Mai's spine. She could feel the hair's rise on her arms in pleasant goosebumps.

Then in a beautiful, underwater burst of sound, the girls burst back into the song and the finned girl started to dance.

It had to be the most gorgeous, unearthly sight Mai had ever seen.

Using her long fins like veils, she curved and rolled about them, outlining every curve of her body that made her a woman, and tracing along the careful bending of her tail. Her short dark hair brought out her thick lashes, which she kept half-way closed the entire time, watching the movement of the veils through the water. Bubbles like tiny jewels followed each sweep in lines, so precise and perfect that Mai knew each movement had been carefully constructed to make them so.

The music, alien and familiar at once, churned through Mai's blood like river rapids. Her throat tensed in the desire to sing along or jump up and join the dance. Somehow, though underwater, the dance brought up the hot orange sands of Arizona and the bright blue sky which hugged them; the gleam of the river stones Mai's mother hunted through, the smell of lavender and sage.

A dream came to mind, one that had come to her not all that long ago, where her mother had been.

 _"_ _You must really like him…"_

And then she could hardly breathe. Horror ran her through like a blade. There was nothing she could do to stop what was coming upon her, and in front of all these strangers.

But the dance was still going, still taking chunks of any reserve of apatheticness and emotional control Mai had. But she couldn't just leave, she was a princess, everyone would see…

Clenching her fists so hard her nails bit into her skin, Mai got out from the table as smoothly as she could and wriggled her way to her grandmother. Thankfully, all the women she passed were enthralled by the performance.

Her grandmother, however, noticed her instantly.

"I need to go lay down," whispered Mai. "Headache. I think it's the high notes."

The queen's brow puckered with concern, but she nodded.

"You know where to find me if you need anything. I love you."

Mai gave her a weak smile, but couldn't say another word past the invisible hand that had a hold over her throat.

Doing her best to be as inconspicuous as possible, Mai slipped out one of the black-seaweed hidden doors the servants had come through and into the dim beyond. Choking against the sobs and sharp pains in her eyes, she sped down the halls, praying she met no one, vision blurring with tears that would never come.

Somehow, after bumping into several walls and nearly passing out from attempts to keep her sobs quiet, she found the tiny alcove hidden in the dark stone behind an open vent and tucked herself in.

Only then did she allow the violent grief to take over. It rocked her like a boat on the waves, sounding her own broking breathing in her ear like a storm. The muscles about her eyes tensed to tight strings of pain.

Naru. Stupid, arrogant, narcissistic, wonderful, brilliant, perfect Kazuya.

 _"_ _You must really like him…"_

'Liked, Mama. Really, really liked _._ '

Released from the dark prison she had stuffed them in, memories rushed to the surface of her mind. Naru had his arms tight around her, his mouth tilted and formed perfectly over hers. His sagebrush and sea salt scent whirled in her skull more vivid than any image could be.

 _"_ _I'm sticking with you. I will make you happy; I can't stand for you to be otherwise. If that isn't love, than I will make it be."_

"Damn it, Naru. Keep your promises." She pressed the heels of her hands so hard against her aching eyes that stars burst into her vision.

She hadn't even had the time to tell him—tell him anything. And to think she had dawdled over her newfound feelings because she was wary of a future with him; a future she would now never have the chance to know.

A warm hand touched her arm. Without looking up she knew who it was that had found her. He was probably the only one who knew this fault in the palace's architecture existed, for all she knew.

"What?" she croaked.

The hand drew back. "Princess...did…did remember lost friend?"

His awkward English almost made her smile. She lifted her head enough to peer at him from over her arm. The black tail and hair repairman still had his hand out to her. Some of the dangling tools on his belts fluttered in the draft of warm water from the vent.

She nodded. At the pained arching of his eyebrows and sympathetic parting of his lips, she found herself pushing out the words.

"I think I loved him, and he will never know."

He nodded. "I understand."

"They killed him. They killed him to get to me."

He flinched, eyes widening. "Killed? Murder?"

Another quaking tremor ran through her and she clenched her eyes against the pain. "Yes. The guard. The guard that found me. Rescued me. They tipped his boat to get to me and he drowned."

"Drowned…" he looked confused for a moment, but then the compassionate agony returned to his face double fold. "A _human?_ "

"Yes."

"Princess," it was a moan. "Sorry."

The pitying way he looked on her stung and she huddled tighter into her corner. Why did he always have to find her when she was at her worst?

"Didn't you say a friend of yours died too?"

He listened, thinking, perhaps figuring out what she said then nodded.

"Sister," he said. "Best friend. Baby would not come out right. Blood—no—bled and not wake up."

So she died in childbirth. Even as he struggled to find the words, Mai could see the echoes of her own pain on his face. Without thinking she reached out to him too, hungry for a kin heart.

Her fingers brushed against his chin. He almost flinched, but held himself still to stare.

"I'm sorry." She hiccupped. "I'm sorry."

Those black eyes of his, like warm coals, met her gaze for the first time, and they held such naked wonder that she had to turn away or risk seeing every thought in his head.

Sighing, he pulled himself on top of the vent and hunched into the cramped space. Before she could ask whether or not the vent was burning his hide or not, his fingertips tenderly touched the corners of her eyes.

Memories of Naru overwhelmed her. He too had touched her eyes like this, so tenderly, so cautiously.

She allowed him to close her eyes and rub along the upper corners of them. After only a few rubs the pain that had built left. She opened her eyes in time to see his fingertips peppered with tiny, pearl like flakes as they pulled away quickly.

"Should help," he said, rather weakly. "Sorry."

"I-it's okay. They do feel better." She touched one tentatively. So that's what happened when you cried as a mermaid. "I feel really stupid asking, but what's your name?"

"Zen." He said instantly. "And you Princess Mai Taniyama." He smiled.

She rolled her eyes, hiccupping another breath. "Mai is fine."

He shook his head. "Princess."

She scowled. "Mai."

She must have looked so ferocious with her puffy eyes and haggard face that he instantly agreed, repeating her name a few times in his own defense.

For a few moments they stayed like that, her curled in her little dark alcove, Zen hunched up on top of the vent. Once a couple of servants passed below and glanced up, but it was probably nothing new to see Zen up in the vents, for they went on without a second thought, having not seen Mai. Zen didn't dare to touch her again, but Mai was sure to massage out the flecks of pearl that gathered at the corner of her eyes.

At some point, so low that she at first mistook it for the hum of the vent beneath him, Zen started to hum. She had never heard a merman sing, but lower notes rolled over her just the same as the high tremors of the musicians back in the great hall. Except, somehow, they held something deeper, something rich, that ran over the horrible raw ache in her chest like hot chocolate and warm plaid blankets.

He hummed quietly, carefully, his eyes looking somewhere to the left of her as though nervous to meet her gaze. But she understood he hummed for her, to sooth her.

When it seemed as though Mai had finally gotten some hold on breathing normally again, Zen spoke up. "Maitre would no…approve. May I, you and I, tomorrow? Breakfast? Kitchens?" He grimaced. "Ugh, my English. I sound idiot."

"You seem to understand me well enough, and I can understand you for the most part…but yeah, you do sound a little weird."

He ducked his chin in obvious sheepishness. "I will listen to Maitre-ders when can. Get better."

Maitre-ders—those on her grandmother's council. So that's how he knew English. He had listened in on the Matrons, might even be a relative to one of them. That would explain why he was so much better at understanding her than speaking.

"I'll help." She said with a smile. "Breakfast in the kitchens tomorrow, like grandma said we could. I will be there."

The glowing smile he returned stunned her momentarily. His pale skin and black colorings had almost made him look sickly to her, but in that moment all of that vanished.

And he was handsome. Almost as handsome as Naru. Beautiful, even.

His fingers brushed against her arm like a feather once more.

"Will be all right. Hurt now, but be all right. I no tell about…" he gestured to Mai's hiding spot. "Yours."

In other words, he promised to keep her haven a secret. She could come whenever she needed to have a good cry and no one would be the wiser.

"Thank you, Zen."

With a nod, and still sporting that brilliant grin, he sunk back down into the hall.


	20. The Genius and God

**So sorry this is late, guys, I was traveling. X.X And for some odd reason, no one in my family seemed to have accessible** **internet. Coastal Oregon to Southern Utah is not a treat, let me tell you. It's 19 hours of wo and misery. Two days being cramped in a Honda Civic. No beuno. No beuno.**

 **But, anyhoo, here it is!**

Chapter 19

Kazuya wondered why there couldn't be telescopes on the ocean. It couldn't be any less difficult to manage than at the north pole, where the world's most influential telescope was housed. Because domed above him, an ethereal cathedral painted by God himself, the sky had never been so rich with stars. Rainbows of stars, all struck through with a stripe of Milk Way. He had found that, if he stared into it long enough, he could almost imagine his never resting mind becoming swallowed up in the glittering dark. No coordinates, no strange formations on the ocean floor, no fabulous plastic shields against sonar, and no Mai—or rather the raw cold inside him that she had left behind.

Below him on the first deck, the kitchen door opened.

"Where'd he run off to now?" said the low tenor of Takigawa.

"Beats me. Probably brooding or bleaching his face on his laptop," said Ayako. "You'd think with no internet he'd have grown bored of that thing. You think he's really going to find Atlantis?"

"Duh. Didn't you see the documentary?"

Ayako sounded wry. "Don't really watch Discovery channel."

"Oh, excuse me, I forgot like those floosy soap operas and reality TV where everyone—OW!"

" _American Idol_ does NOT count as a soap opera or all reality TV! For your information, everyone watches that!"

"Only American Idol? I seem to recall one with a bunch of angry wannabe porn models—OUCH! Damn it, woman!"

"Course that'd be the only one you recall! Remind me why I let you over to my house?"

Kazuya tried to push the voices out of his awareness and go back to the sky. There was a reason he was hitting his third day of laying on the yacht roof after dinner. Not only were the romantically frustrated morons irritating for even the most patient of people, but Yasu's perverted witticism and obvious ignorance of common sense was driving Kazuya past his endurance.

And it was only now that he was surrounded by a crew set on trying to be sociable towards him that Kazuya regretted Lin's lack of ability in the conversation department. If he had someone he could listen to other than them, someone he could talk his ideas over with—

He caught himself there. He had been just fine with Lin's taciturn ways before. He had had colleagues and his parents to talk to. Perhaps it was just the lack of internet.

Besides, it wasn't like Mai would've understood it all, right? It probably would have all gone over her head.

But she would have listened…and she would've asked the questions he had never thought to wonder, or that he had taken for granted. And she could let her fingers lie in his hair, or tell him more stories about her mother and the desert. There had been one—what had it been about? Sagebrush; fields upon fields of sagebrush, as far as the eye could see, until you hit naked, craggy mountains, and something about imaging a princess in the moon during long car rides into the night.

"Bossman? You up here?"

Kazuya restrained a groan. Out of all the people to find him. "Yes."

"You doing alright?"

He hated how he asked that like they were friends. "Yes." Then he closed his eyes. Ever since he had threatened to throw Yasu overboard if he directed any more of his pervy jokes at himself or Mai, Yasu had actually been moderately passable at leaving him be. If it weren't for the fact they were stuck on a boat in the middle of the ocean and that Kazuya was technically the Captain and in charge of the expedition, he might have been able to avoid him completely.

When he heard the kid sit down next to him, Kazuya almost jumped off the roof.

"Holy crap, those stars. No wonder you come up here so often."

Kazuya said nothing. Maybe if he kept quiet Yasu would leave.

But Yasu fell into an usual silence. The seconds ticked by. After the yelling of Ayako and Takigawa had vanished into the depths of the boat, Kazuya dared to return to his stargazing and thoughts. There had been that story, after all. Car rides in the desert and a princess in the moon. She had said she could see the land sloping all the way up to the mountains. Every inch of the land had had curves, not a blank, flat horizon like at sea.

He had never really thought to visit the open deserts of western America. The few times he had been at Las Vegas and other cities for science conventions, he had been intent on getting in and on to his next stop as soon as possible. The idea of being so close to the hypocritical hell holes of Casion's and strip joints had repulsed him. They had been the symbols of the lowest dregs of society—places where people like Yasu could be found. People he couldn't understand, and who couldn't even begin to understand him.

"You know about Bimini Road? It should be in the area you're looking at. Are the rumors that it's completely natural true?"

Kazuya glanced over at him. Someone like him knew about the Bimini Road? Not too surprising, he supposed. Yasu had said he was a hitch hiking nomad of sorts.

Cautiously, Kazuya said, "Hard to say from here. It was on my original travel plan when I had begun researching mermaids, though."

Yasu leaned back on his hands, head tipped back to see the stars. "From the pictures I googled once, I can't imagine anything like that being natural. All those perfectly rectangle shaped stones all in a row? Perfectly cut walls of stone? Bricks? And then when I read that it was all, you know, earth made."

"Far more remarkable things have been made by natural means."

"What, you saying you've seen even more freaky things?"

Kazuya snorted. "Freaky is relative. But on a scale of the unlikely," he rolled his head to the side to give him his sharpest stare. "Human beings. The idea that nature made us by a fluke makes the Bimini Road look like mud, and yet people accept that far easier every day. But as I say—that which is extraordinary or 'freaky' is all relative, and extremely inaccurate."

Yasu was blinking hard at him now. "Did you just say you believe in God?"

That hadn't been what he was saying at all. "No."

"Sooo, you don't believe in God?"

Kazuya sighed heavily. "Why do I have to replay everything I say to you? Of course I didn't say that. Don't you have engine feeds to paint?" It was a project the kid had come up with the previous day to make the engine room more efficient and give him something to do during the long hours of featureless sailing.

But Yasu acted as though he hadn't heard him. "Fine, scientifically speaking, do you believe in God?"

"Belief has nothing to do with science."

"But isn't that what you research? Where belief and science mix?"

"I study the paranormal and cultural myths, not faiths. Religion is something else entirely."

"Is it?"

Kazuya paused. He realized, in a flash of frustration, that he should have thought of that. Myths did provide a base in every religion, after all. He had had to study his fair share of faiths in order to understand where a myth or idea could have come from to form the foundation of an entire culture.

Though why Yasu seemed to think believing in God had anything to do with what he did escaped him. He would have told him more clearly to leave, maybe glared at him, but he stopped. He could almost hear her voice then. Wouldn't she have asked a similar question with that same 'well duh' tone?

It disturbed him to think this loser who annoyed him with everything he did should remind him of Mai, but he had to learn to tolerate him somewhere, otherwise the rest of the voyage would prove to be his death.

So, Kazuya gave Yasu a searching look. "If you are having troubles with your faith, don't ask for the facts. Faith is about believing what has yet to be proven."

Yasu gave him a sheepish grin. "Well, yeah. But facts don't hurt."

Kazuya did a double take. Was Yasu actually…confiding in him? Kazuya hadn't expected to be completely right in guessing Yasu's intentions. The kid was the last one he thought of having a faith, or any morals for that matter.

At his look, Yasu shrugged and added, "I'm curious. Humor me. What do you think of the great myth of God?"

Kazuya blinked. Then, still somewhat stunned at this turn of events, he looked back to the beautiful sky above him. He fumbled for his thoughts like the pages of a dropped report.

"As a scientist it is said to be dangerous to mix one's faith with their research. It's important to keep one's biases and perceived presumptions as far away from the process as possible, in order to obtain accuracy." He hesitated. This part of science always played too close to philosophy for his liking. "But I've always found that the more complicated people make something, the farther from the truth they get."

"Okay…" Yasu's confused expression remind Kazuya of the person he was talking to, and he cleared his throat to try and get his thoughts back on track. This wasn't a lecture. This was just a question about God.

"In my field of study," he said carefully. "With how much evidence and affect 'God' has had…it is nigh impossible for me to believe that a higher power didn't organize it all. Now, the interpretation of his laws, on the other hand, is another story completely, and that's a mess that is another field entirely."

"So…you believe in God? I mean, after all your studies and research you think God isn't a myth?"

"I'd be surprised if God was."

"So, what, does that make you a Christian or something? Do you think there's an afterlife and whatnot?"

"And that's for religion to answer. Don't ask me to try and prove those for you, Yasu, I'm not a prophet."

"I wasn't saying you were. I was just asking for your opinion. You don't have to prove it to me."

Kazuya sat up. As he did so he could hear a door opening and the sound of Masako's voice as she checked in with Lin in the control deck below them.

"Yasu, what do you want?"

The frumpy guy jumped. "Nothing! I'm just talking! Am I not suppose to do that with you now too?"

Kazuya was tempted to say yes. "I will not be lead to believe I'm the most attractive of conversation partners, especially when it comes to something that seems to be bothering you. I'm not good with comforting or whatever it is you're looking for. You're better off going somewhere else."

Yasu gave him an incredulous look as he tugged down his dirty black shirt. "The way you're talking, I'd almost think you're saying you're lonely."

Kazuya snorted. "Hardly."

Now it was Yasu's turn to give him a dead panned look. But he wisely chose not to press it. Instead he went back to looking at the stars, leaving Kazuya to fold his legs beneath him and get the cramps out of his neck.

"Despite your grumpy tight-ass ways," said Yasu, quietly. "What you said did help. I don't know what I did to make you hate my guts so much, but whatever it is, I hope we can get over it. I'd rather not have to spend my last week's alive with someone who wants me dead anyways."

Once more, Yasu's words stopped Kazuya in his tracks. The familiar cold swept down his arms to his fingers. Of course. That's why the perverted party jock would suddenly start worrying about God.

"You're not going to die," Kazuya said without thinking.

"Don't give me that. You're being chased by out of the law Feds who want you dead and we're on an old boat that isn't exactly made for anything other than cruising along clear waters. One bad storm comes—and what's going to happen once we find these merpeeps of yours? Would people that anti-human really be okay with us just sticking around? Dude, those people tried to kill you just because you knew about mermaids. You may not have seen them, but I did. Loaded to the gills."

"What happened to all your previous excitement?" Kazuya asked dryly, trying desperately to hid the acidic black fear bubbling into his chest.

"The excitement wears off after the first few days of trying not to roast in a closed off engine room from the seventies, trust me." But Yasu didn't look particularly angry. But the way he was looking at Kazuya wasn't exactly better. It was far too close to pity. "Ayako and Takigawa are wondering all this as well. If you don't stop it with your grouchy piss off aura, they're going to start really hating you for getting them into this situation, and I don't think seeing mermaids will cut it out for them."

"Hmph, like I should care what they think." But Kazuya was speaking on auto-pilot now. His mind had rushed back to his bedroom, where his articles waited, and to the supply room where his nets, sonar emitters, thermostats, and various other testing equipment waited. He had yet to test his theory about the porous layers of mica being able to absorb sound waves. Once they reached his set coordinates it would be better for all of them if he had all the facts ready before hand.

Yasu sighed. "Should've expected that." Running a hand through his unkempt, sea crusted hair, Yasu stood and stretched. "Guess I'll stop torturing you with my presence now and let you get back to your glorious wet dreams of your mermaid."

By the time Kazuya pieced together the double meaning to that statement, Yasu was already heading down the ladder.


	21. Ninja Mermaid

**I lied. But here's your update. And I'm debating on cutting it off here. It's getting into epic fantasy and world building, and I'm sure most of you started off reading a romantic thriller. Got a few more chapters left. But eventually I'm going to need to figure this out.**

 **Mostly I'm just brain dead from driving 36 hours.**

Chapter 20

Zen was already waiting for her at the table when she swam in, puffy eyed and groggy from having cried herself to sleep. As the kitchen hands moved to get her breakfast ready, the pale, freckled merman brought up a bone box of beautiful, transparent, rectangular blocks, not unlike Janga blocks. He motioned to her to watch as he then drew out a tiny butterfly net holding a single, glass-like jellyfish. He put it's opening down on the table so the jellyfish glooped up into the net. Then, after counting to ten, he flipped the net over, releasing the jellyfish.

He swiped out block after block in a blurr. A small cage-like tower started to form, in which the jellyfish swam up through. Up and up went the jellyfish and its tower, till at the last moment, where it seemed the jellyfish would finally escape him and float off into umbrella-jello bliss, Zen grabbed the last three blocks from the box and caped off the tower. It teetered dangerously from the force and both Mai and him stuck out their hands to catch it as it eventually tipped.

Glittering blocks splattered everywhere.

The Chef's broad hand stopped the tiny jellyfish. Looking, as always, annoyed with Zen's presence, he carefully eased the jellyfish down into the butterfly net Zen held out for it. Once recaptured, Zen laid the flat of the net against the table top.

"Gotvii," he said to her as the Chef slid a skewer of carefully broiled eel and a coconut before her. "Game. Build fast to catch jellyfish. Have to use all blocks. Person to breaks tower loses. Person to lay last block wins. Jellyfish escape, both lose. Want to play?"

Mai was delighted. A distraction. Just what she needed.

Once she had inhaled her breakfast they set to work. Mai was horrible at it. The first few times she ended up knocking down the tower, one of which she feared she had squashed the poor baby jellyfish to death. It wasn't till the fourth time that she finally got a hand for balancing the little blocks, but then her and Zen's hands kept crashing together as they tried to build on the same spot, which would then make the tower wobble.

The game ended when her grandmother entered to summon her to her language and etiquette lessons, which were always attended by one or more of the other seven matrons, who seemed just as delighted, if not more, at having a young princess to teach.

Her brain still spun with words and rules when lunch came in, carried by the usual male servers, but she preferred it that way. Keep her head full. Leave no room for Naru or sunlight or strawberry milkshakes to slip in.

After lunch, her grandmother and another matron, one Mai couldn't remember the name of and tried to hide that fact from, fussed about with her hair and blouse. The belt they looped about her scaled hips this time was layered, looking even more like a skirt. It's length ended just half a foot before her fins, but almost gave the impression of combining with them.

"Okay, what's going on?" Mai asked as the matron took hold of her chin and commanded her to close her eyes. The cool touch of an ink tipped stick touched her lash line.

"I'm taking the chance to fulfill one of my life dreams," said her grandmother, voice light with withheld laughter. "I'm taking a daughter shopping. Now, be careful, or I fear I'll have no choice but to spoil you rotten."

Even Mai, who had never been that big of a shopper (never having the money to do so, being raised by a single mother), perked.

"We're going outside?"

The smile her grandmother gave her dropped a dollop of warmth into her stomach. For the first time, Mai could feel the love of her grandmother right down to her toes. She couldn't help but think, in wonder, at what she had been missing all those years since her mother's mother had died of an accident.

Most new and wondrous of all, Mai found she didn't want to disappoint this beautiful, silver woman. She wanted to give her reason to smile more like that when she looked at her. She wanted to be the daughter she longed for. She felt, in that moment, that she'd go shopping and let her dress her up as much as she liked.

Before they left, a circle of bare-chested, burly mermen greeted them in the entrance hall. They had the same black sheaths looped to their sides as the Vovo and his comrades had, along with spears and necklaces of teeth and obsidian.

In the face of their muscles and teethed jewelry, Mai faltered, just a bit intimidated. Memories of other guards, ones with too-hot hands that yanked her out of water filmed with her own vomit, rose unbidden to her mind.

But then they all smiled at her, gently, and truly, and bowed to their tail fins as one.

"There's more this time," said Mai, somewhat nervously. Six, as a matter of fact. When they had visited Lucris her grandmother had only brought two.

"We're going where there's more people," said her grandmother, as though it should have been obvious.

"But why would anyone want to attack us anyways? I mean, if there is as few of us as there is…" Mai trailed off uncertainly.

Her grandmother gave her a sad little smile. "My little dear, why should number effect it? They are still people, with differing opinions and differing ways of dealing with those who think differently from them. Human or merfolk, there will always be those who seek to harm those in power, whether they handle that power righteously or wickedly."

With that solemn message hanging above them, they set out into the sunlit and coral colored waters.

It was much like her first day. Merfolk dropped what they were doing to make way for her and her grandmother. As she had been taught, Mai kept her eyes to the ground in order not to meet anyone else's. Pebbly sand made up the roads, and now and then she caught the stern, streamline fins of their guards kicking up small clouds of dust and smaller stones. Where they came, the crowd quieted to a murmur, and Mai longed to know what they said.

At one point Mai stole a glance at her grandmother. She had her chin held high, her hands folded before her, and her long, gorgeous silver hair trailing behind her like a banner. As Queen, she was strong enough to appear so. Mai, as the still illiterate lost princess, did not, and thus had to keep her head down for safety's sake. Though safe from what, Mai did not know, and her grandmother's explanation had been vague, at best. Something to do with some male's seeing eye contact as a possible invitation to courtship.

And that had just made Mai feel like she was being treated as a dog in heat.

Unbidden, Naru's face rose to her mind, and she squeezed her folded hands hard.

 _"_ _I'm sticking with you. I will make you happy; I can't stand for you to be otherwise. If that isn't love, than I will make it be."_

Without thinking, she knocked the heel of her hand against the side of her head—hard. She didn't have to look up to know her grandmother would be giving her one of those stern looks.

Fortunately, she wasn't scolded in front of the city, and after a good fifteen minute swim they made it to the open and crowded marketplace. Mai tentatively lifted her head up and found a pentagon shaped clearing of buildings, where little stands had been built up against stone walls and painted slabs of coral floated above doorways, etched with slanted words Mai only recognized as Mermish. In the middle of the square as a large, flat stone, like a stage or platform, which had been left meticulously clean of any coral, algae, seaweed, or sea life. Several merfolk were seated about it, some munching sticks of various fish and seafood, others with mesh bags of their shopping tied to belts around their waists.

Before her eyes could accidentally meet their staring eyes, she brought it back down.

"What kinds of things did you have an interest for on land?" asked her grandmother, all sternness gone and the excitement from that morning back.

Mai had to think harder than she would have liked. "I-I liked to read. Books and stories and the like. I doubt you have anything to read in English down here, though."

"You never know," she said cordially. "How about clothes? Music? I heard you enjoyed Gotvii from the Chef. Would you like your own set?"

Gotvii, gotvii…oh! "The jellyfish tower game?"

"Yep. And we could-Oh! This is too much. Let's just jump right into it. First off, books! Something for my granddaughter to read."

And as though regressing several decades, her grandmother grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her through the square towards one of the coral-sign-marked stores and into the opening.

Inside was a clear, clean long room, lit via open skylights in the roof and globes of luminescent jellyfish in the darker corners. The walls had been crisscrossed with boards to look like a whinery, but rather than bottles, the diamond-shaped cubbies held rolls upon rolls of dark seaweed, with cores ranging from bone to jewel-like fish scales to mother-of-pearl.

While the guards took their stations outside and inside the store, the queen fluttered to the front to a stone counter, where an elderly merman stood at the ready, head bowed respectfully. As her grandmother talked to him, Mai wandered over to one of the cubbies and eased one of the scrolls out. Hoping she didn't somehow get herself in trouble by doing so, she slipped off the beginning and unrolled the sturdy, beaten-seaweed paper. In milky bright ink, the slanted, scratching writing of the merfolk trailed down its length in neat columns. She touched the print with her finger, but it didn't blur or smear. Another roll showed her a darker ink, one that could have been harvested from an octopus or tar beneath the ocean floor, though it showed up because the scroll itself was made of beaten red seaweed, rather than the dark green of the previous roll.

Fascinated, she barely noticed when the wizened merman slipped up to her side and with an armful of scrolls.

"Young princess…"

Mai jumped, apology already on the tip of her tongue, before seeing the scrolls he offered her. Gingerly, she picked up the first one.

"What are…?"

"Scrolls in English," he said, voice reminiscent of the breeze of ocean currents. "There are more, but these are what I thought would interest you most. They consist of the merfolk history, mythology, and various other pieces of fiction."

She smiled gratefully as she took up the others he held. "Thank you. Your English is really…refined. Were you a teacher once?"

He gave her a warm smile. "My wife is one of the maitre-ders, and I am, well, I guess you could say I'm a great-uncle to you of sorts."

Before Mai could think of what to say to this, her grandmother had drifted over with her own armful of scrolls, beaming.

"I knew we could depend on Jin! Look at all he's found you! We're getting every one and you can read to your heart's content, isn't that wonderful?"

Mai didn't know what to say. She could only stutter her thank yous over and over as Jin packed away the dozen or so scrolls into mesh-shopping bags, which were then tied to the belt of one of their guards. Jin just smiled that same, blanket-warm smile and assured her that he was more than happy to supply a fellow lover of stories.

Back outside, more than a little of her grandmother's excitement had returned to Mai, allowing her to push Naru into the far back corner of her mind.

The two of them drifted from stall to stall, eyeing jewelry, clothing, and all sorts of things Mai had never dreamed could exist under the ocean. A whole new aspect of her life came to life, and Mai even became comfortable with the watching eyes of the merfolk as she fluttered after the long fins and hair of the queen.

By the time her back was beginning to hurt from swimming and the waters above had begun to shadow with late afternoon light, all of their guards had at least one shopping bag tied to their waists and Mai was happily munching on a delicious sweet wrapped and baked about a long, polished fish bone. Her grandmother was telling her of the festivals often held in that square on their way to finding a seat around the empty platform. Just as the skirts of their fins and belts fluttered to a rest, Mai's eyes caught something just outside her vision. A dim flash of something above. She looked up, expecting to see just the sheen of filtered sunlight on folk swimming above, but stopped.

"Grandma, what are those ropes for."

The queen looked up. The ropes in question started out high on the city's walls and seemed to end in midair, held taunt by some invisible tarp. Dozens of them ranged about the city's walls until they grew too small in the distance but all held taunt and still, so more like sticks than ropes.

"Ah," she said. "Can't believe I forgot. That is the, well, I guess you could call it a sonar shield of sorts. You can't quite see it from underneath, but it's a fine layer of mica plates, layered and set in such a way that they absorb sound waves. In that way, any humans happening to sail by will only see a flat ocean floor. While efficient, it is often damaged in storms, so there's an around the clock crew who keeps it in repair. Ah, see, there's one now."

The merman in particular was darker in color, sort of a muggy brown with a back crisscrossed with belts. He paddled up the wall with quick, short spurts.

"A repairman," said Mai, licking her fingers clean. "Kind of like Zen then?"

Her grandmother just shrugged. "You mean the black boy, I'm guessing."

Mai frowned. She wouldn't think of him as 'black'. His skin was very pale, almost too much so, but then, merfolk had a different understand of that term. Now that she thought about it, Mai had yet to see any dark-skinned merfolk, so perhaps Zen really was 'black'.

"I know Zen is a boy and all, but I get the feeling you don't like him very much. The Chef's always glaring at him too."

Her grandmother shifted, a solemn sort of air settling in around her. "Us…older folk tend to have a harder time forgetting. It has nothing to do with him, persay, but…well, it's not a necessarily important story. I'll have a talk with the Chef, though."

But now Mai was curious. "Forgetting what? Was his family traitors or something? Is he some exiled prince of another country?"

The queen shook her head with a smile. "Oh, dear, no wonder you liked reading. No. Not quite." She hesitated. "Well, I suppose it isn't all too important. You see, back in the day when we merfolk could afford to be at war with one another, Zen's family had been a separate tribe of their own; mercenaries, of sorts, though mercenary is too tame a word."

Mai's eyes widened. "His family was ninjas?"

This time the queen tipped her head back and laughed all the way down to her belly, drawing the gaze of several shoppers. "Ninjas? I never thought of it that way, but that is the most accurate word I've heard for them yet. See, because of their natural black scales and hair, Zen's family was naturally adept at hiding within the depths and shadows of the ocean. Because of this they'd also spend hours baking in the sun to darken their skin and were well versed in the many uses of seafloor tar and silent weaponry. Assassins, mercenaries, or these ninjas, they all fit, because the end point is that they made their living off of war.

"But little over ten years ago, when the pact between the Five Kingdoms was made to preserve our species rather than focus on our inane squabbling, part of the truce was to eliminate this black tribe and their ways. Together, the Five Kingdoms slaughtered them, scattered the hiding places of their secrets, and agreed to never again dig up their secret combinations."

At Mai's wide-eyed, numb stupefaction, her grandmother gave her a sad little smile.

"As you have probably guessed, not all of them were killed, otherwise Zen would not be here. The youngest of the children were spared. It didn't seem right to those to kill those so innocent, so they were scattered to various kingdoms and raised as one of their own. Yet, as I suspect is the case with the Chef and some of the others, it is difficult to shake off the old knee-jerk reaction to avoid those with the tall-tale black scales and hair. The Chef specifically had some bad run-ins with Zen's family in his younger days that are hard to forget."


	22. Everyone Wants On Board

**I'm getting back to this story because I seriously, SERIOUSLY need to write again. I've been working for weeks on other people's stuff and my brain is starting to write all night long while I'm dreaming, it's insane! My brain is so busy while I'm dreaming I'm waking up with headaches!**

 **Thus, here we go. One chapter a week. Let's get this baby over with.**

Chapter 21

Varadero was a thin peninsula of land that strung out from Cuba like a line of spit. Resorts took up the majority of it, making the fueling station they had docked at just as shiny and high end as the sleek yacht's lined up next to it. Kazuya observed all these from beneath a curtain of his black bangs.

Takigawa pushed the straw hat lower over the younger man's head. "Best you keep that glare of yours under cover, boss."

Kazuya unstuck the hat and reset it at a more comfortable position. "I need a haircut."

"I can do that." Ayako stepped up to his other side, red hair tied up in a tight ponytail. "If we don't get assassinated, that is. Do you honestly think they followed us all the way here?"

"Where's Yasu?"

"He's coming. Just finishing his checklist."

Kazuya rolled his eyes. "More like his wish list. Against popular belief, I'm not made of money."

"As we can see." Takigawa gave a significant look to their worn, yellowed yacht and making a show of comparing it to its white, streamlined neighbor. The red stripe Lin had taken the effort to paint on during his escape episode had already started to crack and peel.

"You sure Lin can handle the spy mermaid?" asked Ayako. "I mean, I'm no karate master, but she has moves."

"He can handle it." Kazuya reached inside his garish Hawaiian shirt to recheck that the pistol was still strapped in its place. Masako had brought something useful on board after all. Perhaps he should think of adding more of those to the grocery list.

Thudding of feet on the deck made him look up. "There he is. Now, remember, stick together. There's no way for us to get in contact should we lose sight of one another, but just in case make your way back to the ship. At the latest we'll leave by nightfall. Anyone who isn't on the boat will be left behind."

Takigawa gave a low whistle. "That's cold."

"It's survival." Kazuya wiped at a line of sweat beneath his bangs. "Yasu, have you done what I've asked with the list?"

The bespeckled boy, looking dirtier than usual since they had gone on water rations (which meant no showers), lifted up his list. "Yeah yeah, keep it cheap. I do know what I'm doing, you know."

"Good. Let's head out then."

They got off board and headed down the walk. The few people milling about stared a bit at their haggard group and old ship, but looked away quick enough at Kazuya's glare. A clean shaven employee of the pump filled out Kazuya's request for fuel and jotted down the credit card number given without a word. His dark eyes didn't question, nor did his cinnamon hands miss a beat.

They talked little as they weaved their way through the sparse crowds to the road, where they hailed down a taxi who spoke just enough English to gather that they wanted a place where they could buy food, water, and boat hardware. He accepted the credit card number, though according to Yasu's own broken Spanish, most shops off Varadero wouldn't know what to do with credit cards and would only accept cash. When Kazuya tried to ask about an ATM, the cabbie had only given him a blank look, pointed back to the resorts, and drove off.

Groaning, Kazuya yanked off his hat and scratched his sweaty head. Some of the brown skinned locals glanced at them as they went past.

"So we need to find an ATM," said Yasu slowly. "Which is all the way back at those rich peep pools."

"He said most," said Kazuya. "We can't waste more time than we already have. Besides, it's a bad idea to carry around too much cash in crowds like these, who are use to loaded, naïve tourists."

Takigawa and Ayako did a double take at the women who had passed by them, holding baskets at their sides and a little boy in between them.

Ayako's nose wrinkled. "Ugh, this place smells weird."

"You're probably smelling various tobacco, cocaine, and marijuana usage, along with the smoke of various food venders." Kazuya reset his hat. "Unlike with the States, Cuba's drug laws are rather lax."

"I think I can see the hardware store!" Yasu pointed to what looked like it had once been a warehouse, but which had been rebuilt over with boards of questionable nature and whitewashed. A small wooden boat hung over the entrance as a sign. "I can probably carry all I need, so I'll just run over—"

"No. I said we stick together."

"Come on, Kazuya, it's not like we're going to be kidnapped." Ayako rolled her eyes as she fanned her face. "Besides, there's a stall a block or so back selling fans. I have a few bills in my pocket."

He sent her his most icy glare, but it was ruined in part by his overgrown, wet bangs.

"You're far from home in a foreign country with a fugitive—"

"—who couldn't do much if the bad guys decided to do us in anyways," she said with a roll of her eyes. "You'll see me the whole time—look, you can see it from here. Go stand outside that boat shop and babysit me if you have to, but I am melting to death."

And before he could protest, she turned with a swish of hair and a slap of flipflops. Kazuya had no choice but to follow the other two to the boat shop, where Yasu slipped in, leaving him leaning awkwardly against the whitewashed boards.

Kazuya kept his eyes peeled from beneath his bangs for anyone who could have looked out of place. Suits, pale skin, guns, a look too long in their direction—then occasionally glanced in the direction of Ayako, who picked out several fans of woven palm leaves.

"Sir, you dropped this."

A pale hand held out a wad of bills. Kazuya stared at the money, then followed the hand past a conservative, button up shirt to a round, young, freckled face, topped with a mop of bright, sunshine yellow hair.

The young man smile was without a hint of guile.

Kazuya tugged his hat back over his gaze. "Sorry, kid, wrong person."

"But I was certain I saw it fall from your belt. I was walking right behind you, and the woman you were just talking to had the most startling green fingernails. I remember that."

Kazuya did another take of the money, then the kid. The wide blue eyes shone with a quiet earnest that confused him, and the next second he realized that the kid _knew_ the money wasn't his. He had just dropped his mouth open to refuse again—nothing more suspicious than free money—when he noticed a small, black book in his front pocket, and what could only be the tip of a silver crucifix sticking out from his pocket.

"Sorry, kid. I don't do charity."

"But you said your friends were in danger, didn't you? Surely their lives are more important than your pride."

His eyes narrowed. "Stop trying to force your good will down my throat, already. You've done your good deed for the day."

"Who said it was just a good deed? Perhaps it is out of my own desires." But his arm pulled the money back and replaced it with a hand. "Father John Brown, at your service. I'm sorry to have disturbed you."

Kazuya ignored the hand, both out of irritation and to the fact he had enough sweat on his own hand without running it through somebody else's palm.

"Aren't you a bit young to be a priest?"

"I was just ordained. I'm actually nineteen."

"Hn." It wasn't Kazuya's place to judge anyways. Bloke was older than him.

John pulled back his hand awkwardly. "Actually…I was hoping you could help me with something." When Kazuya continued to ignore him, he went on with more than a tinge of sheepishness. "My ride has fallen through, and I've been rather desperate to find another way. Are you, perchance, passing through the Bahamas?"

"Do I look like I run a ferry ride?"

"But you're in a hurry. I don't have the luxury to wait for anyone else to get ready. The sooner I can set off, the better."

Despite Kazuya's growing reluctance to have anything to do with this stranger, he peered up at this, just a little intrigued. "What does a priest need to run from?"

"Not run from; to." The young man licked his dry, pale lips. In that one movement Kazuya took in the rest that he needed to know, such as the small size of the red across his nose and the sweat gathering around the paisley, stiff collar of his shirt. The priest hadn't been out long in the sun, nor did it look like he was ready to dress the part. No sign of luggage either.

Then there was the wad of cash in his hand.

Kazuya pushed off from the wall. "If you needed a ride, why didn't you offer the money before hand? Rather roundabout way you have of getting one. Did you hope I'd give you some 'charity' as well?"

The boy didn't even flinch. "No. To be honest I've given hope that the man I need is even still alive. But seeing you reminded me, and I thought I'd ask."

"You don't want to go with me. It's—"

"—dangerous. I know." A small smile lifted up the cloud of freckles. "But you need the money, right?"

Kazuya looked at the priest's face, then back at the money. There was something unsaid in what John had said, and the scientist felt that if he just asked the question, he would know. At the same time he couldn't quite meet the quiet gaze.

Almost as though fate intended to hammer it into his face, Takigawa poked his head out of the flimsy, driftwood door. "Hey, Cap, they only take cash."

Inside he could hear Yasu's clumsy Spanish rising in pitch.

John smiled and lifted up the cash. "Well?"

So as to banish any hesitancy that he might have felt, he grabbed the cash. "Takigawa, keep an eye on this one. He's our new passenger."

The frumpy, taller man flinched. "Huh?"

Kazuya slipped past him to the darkness of the shop inside, which smelled strong of grease, sea brine, and wet wood.

"Woa, hold on, man, aren't we, like, on a secret mission or something? Can we even trust this guy?"

"No, which is why you're watching him, so get back out there."

"That's so effed up."

"Takigawa."

"I'm going, I'm going! Put your claws away."

Despite his better knowledge, Kazuya found himself oddly calm about the whole decision. The only thing that had really irked him had been John's charity, which had insulted his pride. But other than that, he couldn't find it in him to suspect him past that. If anything, that was what worried him. Perhaps his desperation to find Mai was finally getting to him.

After getting the parts they needed sent over to the ship (overseen by Yasu), Kazuya led the three of them to the store John pointed out for provisions, then proceeded to load up Ayako and Takigawa till they hadn't the breath to ask any more questions about the young priest tagging along.

"He's just going to the Bahama's," Kazuya said once more before heaving a bag of potatoes over his shoulder. "So stop giving me those stupid scared-puppy looks."

"He's going to kill us in our sleep—oof!" Takigawa must have been one bag short.

Lin already had the engine up and going by the time they returned to the boat. Hardly an hour had passed. He stepped so abruptly in front of the priest that he bounced back against his chest and went toppling down on the dock, bags and all.

"Kazuya," he had no space in his tone for nonsense.

"He just needs a ride to the Bahama's," said Kazuya breathlessly. "Shouldn't you be worried about Masako?"

"If you're worried about me, I'm right here, piss brain."

Sure enough, hidden in a dark doorway along the first floor dock was the dark eyed, china doll girl, wearing a frumpy sundress of sorts that looked as though it had been cut and tied from one of the guest room curtains. Her expression held cool politeness.

"She isn't going anywhere," said Lin.

"Oh?"

He lifted up his hand impatiently, showing what looked to be a round, grey disk the size of a quarter. "I can't babysit two."

"For what it's worth," said the meek, but steady voice of the priest as he made to gather up his dropped bags. "I won't be any trouble. I don't even have any luggage you need to worry about."

"Okay, that's just weird. Why the hell would anyone hitch a ride without even a second shirt? Or a toothbrush?" Clearly, Ayako was affronted by this.

"A man in the service of God isn't to worry about the temporal. His Lord will provide," said John, with a brief bow of his head.

Takigawa dropped his sacks of food with one loud groan and thud. "Hey, isn't there a scripture somewhere that says that? Don't bring a coat or script, don't worry what you're going to eat, something like that?"

But Kazuya had run out of patience. He was hot, sweaty, thirsty, hadn't taken a shower in three days, and his damn outgrown hair had slid into his eyes for the last time. "Lin, back off and let's get moving already. I'll watch him myself."

"Kazuya—"

But Father John had already taken the last step off the plank and back onto the dock, still holding the sacks of food. "If this is too much of a problem, I can go somewhere else. No need to worry about me."

Kazuya almost protested, pride stinging at the very thought of having just spent another man's gold, but was roughly shoved to the side by an equally impatient, and much brawnier and taller Lin.

"Please do."

"Lin!"

Ayako 'hmmphed.' While Takigawa gave a low whistle.

John gave a sheepish smile. "In that case, let me drop off these goods and I'll be off."

For a harsh breath, Kazuya thought Lin would demand the kid drop them there, but he stepped aside and allowed John to heft the goods up the blank, where he dropped them next to Takigawa's.

A light chuckle came from the shadows where Masako lounged.

"You lot make me laugh. Do you really think that underfunded gov wart has the gumption to cover up their agent with a priest alibi? Honestly."

Kazuya had a fistful of his assistant's shirt. "Lin, he helped us. He's already paid."

The young priest was already at the bottom of the plank and heading down the dock without a second glance.

When he had reached past the pristine, brilliant white ship next to them, Lin hefted a sigh and pulled his sleeve from Kazuya's grasp.

"Fine."

But running after anyone in this horrid heat was beneath him. So Kazuya sent Takigawa after him instead.


	23. The Birds, the Bees, and Mermen

**Ugh, I feel rusty. Writing pulp werewolf novels for other people can do that to you, I guess. I made sure to read the entire story over before writing this, though, just in case. I've always known how its going to end, though, so that shouldn't change.**

 **Please let me know how I'm doing so far! Encouragement would help loads.**

Chapter 22

Zen brought her a crystal, which he told her to view in the darkness of her cupped hands. When she saw nothing and frowned at him, he just bobbed his head with that funny smile of his that turned his face from almost sickly to handsome and brought out a bottle with a rubber, one way valve. He took the little crystal from her, pushed it in, and shook it up. Even in the little light from the oval kitchen window she could see it begin to glow.

He picked out the pen-like stick flashflight from before and held it up to the bottle.

"Little crystal," he said. "At the end. It…reacts to, uh, dosvcar—uh…"

She smiled as his frustration. "Take your time. You're getting better."

A light blush dusted across the cloud of freckles on his nose. "Dosvcar a…chemical. Reacts to no sunlight—no, lack of sunlight."

"You're thinking too much, Zen."

"Want—I want to do right." And he settled such an earnest, stubborn look at her that she could only roll her eyes and do her best not to comment on his attempts to correct himself. It could have only been two weeks since she had come down here, one of which she had known him. Wait, had it been that long? It felt like it had been longer. It had to be at least three weeks, right?

Zen must have caught on to her trailing off in thought, for he had to tap her with the bottle on her arm to get her attention again.

"Sorry, what did you say?"

His eyebrows started to make that little V of concern. "You alright?"

"Just thinking. About how long I've been down here." She looked to the window and the weak, water filtered sunlight and sighed.

"What think-what are you thinking?"

"That was very good! Conjunction and everything."

For the first time, he gave her a droll look, and it made her laugh, which in turn just served to make him pinken again.

In an attempt to save him from his embarrassment (which seemed so easily induced), she shrugged a shoulder to the window and said, "I miss the sun. When I think about how long I've been down here, I start missing weird things like the dirt between my toes and feeling two separate thighs."

He nodded, though the little V of his eyebrows had puckered up again, and the way he bit the corner of his mouth told her she had confused him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Toes? Thighs?"

She slapped her forehead. Of course. "My bad. Toes are, um…on human feet? Like little fingers."

"Ah."

"And thighs are…the upper part of the leg."

"Leg?"

"Um…" she glanced down at herself. He wouldn't be able to see with the table in the way, so she brought herself out a bit and pointed out where a thigh would be beneath her scales. He didn't seem to want to look at her to closely, though, so she wasn't sure if he meant it when he said he understood.

Which just made her wonder. "Zen, have you ever seen a human?"

He blinked at her. "Uh…"

Next to the oven, one of the kitchen workers hissed a curse and waved his hand. The cook glared at him and said something about the oven mitts with his heavy brow sending wrinkles up his bald scalp.

Zen glanced over at them. Mai wondered why he was taking so long to answer.

"It's okay if you say no," she said.

He flashed her a sheepish grin and shifted the bottled crystal from one hand to the other. "I've, uh…yes."

She cocked her head to the side, but he shook his head.

"Contact with human forbidden. See from distance."

"Oh."

For some reason, that saddened her. She looked back to the weak sunlight and sighed. At least she could see it at all—see the surface at all, even if it high above and separated from them by the sonar shield.

Silence fell between them for a minute, in which Mai tried to stop herself from imagining swimming up to the surface and Zen fingered the bottle.

"I like the sun," he said, unusually mumbled and quiet.

Unbidden, the memory of what her grandmother had said about Zen and his clan explained his sudden nervousness. His clan would bake themselves in the sun to darken their skin so as to better camouflage them in the darkness of the sea. Naturally, Zen's attraction to the sun might be thought suspicious by some as a way to return to his clans ways.

Whether it was or not, Mai found she wasn't worried about as she leaned in and asked him why.

His pale fingers fluttered from the bottle to his arm. "Not like warm of vents. Like…tasting warm on my skin. And bright. Make everything clear and clean." He didn't look at her, but out the window. "Sand…like crystals? Glitter? Everything glitter. Sea glitter. And the sky…"

At the painful longing in his voice, so kin to her own, she couldn't help herself from reaching out to touch him. As before, he flinched back, startling both of them and drawing the grumpy attention of the cook, who said something snappish to Zen.

"I should go," he said, eyes flickering to the chef. "See you tomorrow?"

At the thought of having to wait a whole day and night just to see him, her chest suddenly gave an unbearable, painful crunch and she reached out again to stop him from moving away from the table.

"Sunlight," she blubbered, not even sure what was coming out of her mouth and already knowing she'd regret it. "Can you—if you find a way for us to—to see it, can you…?"

For one of the few times since she had met him, his eyes met hers. Like before, she couldn't hold it for long, as they threatened to convey every thought in his head. She had never met someone before with such an open gaze. It unnerved her enough to remind her that she had a hand on his arm and quickly pulled away. She could feel the heat rising to her face and a steamy guilt rising up from the bottom of her gut.

What the hell was she doing? Grabbing him and asking that—what if he got the wrong idea and thought—and grandma had warned her against all the ways mermen were hypersensitive to romantic advances. It wasn't like she could give him anything so soon after Naru—ever after Naru. She hadn't even really thought of Zen that way, had she?

But then why had the idea of waiting for next morning made her feel so lonely?

The touch of the glass bottle on the back of her hand brought her out of her self-loathing. Inside the little crystal tumbled about, its faceted surfaces reflecting rainbows like anti-freeze on the pavement.

"Yes," he said, almost in a whisper.

Then he handed her the bottle, bid her farewell, and swam out of the room beneath the glares of the chef, who then turned on Mai and said something in buzzing mermish—none of which she caught.

"I'm sorry, I don't quite…" she bowed her head, her face hotter than ever.

The chef gave a loud sigh and went back to the stove. There was a distinct air to the way he turned his back to her, as though to excuse her from the kitchen, though he had no power to tell the princess to go anywhere.

The rest of the day was spent, as usual, by her grandmother's overprotective side. The matrons fluttered in and out, their English varying, though all displaying the unwavering delight of being able to help her with various tutoring. The scrolls the queen had bought her turned out to not only be useful, but incredibly interesting. According to the one about history, which was brief and to the point unlike history books on the surface, the merfolk had always been less than that of the land folk. But it was only in nearing the nineteenth century did population began to decrease significantly in comparison to the boom of land folk population. Merfolk hunting was the least of it, as the land folk's disbelief for their existence increased substantially through the vigorous efforts of the mermaids who could shift on land, after the heavy hunting of mermaids in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Apparently the hunts became something of a sport after the Trojan war, where sirens lured so many men to their death with their voices.

There were other accounts of wars between the two races, but they were quite few, as the same mermaids that could shift could sing thousands of men to their deaths. Relying on the capabilities of a mermaid to hypnotize humans was left to emergencies only, though most of humanity wrote of such incidents as simple ships lost at sea.

What Mai thought was interesting was why the population should decrease so dramatically with the coming on of the nineteenth century. According to the scroll, pollution of ocean waters by human industry was decreasing birth rates. There was also the question of why technology had changed so drastically in the last hundred years. Why, in the thousands of years in which humanity and merfolk, did it take this century in particular for so many technologies and wonders to be discovered?

Naru would love this. Oh he would have adored this. If only she could sneak just one of these scrolls to him.

Thinking up various ways in which this would go over with him in turn left her depressed and exhausted when she finally returned to her room at the end of the day.

"This sucks," she said. "Naru, you suck. You suck so bad."

In fact, he sucked so bad she took the scroll she had been eating up like a starvation victim all day and stuffed it underneath her sponge bed—or tried to. Unfortunately, mermish interior design left little room for random spaces, as in the ocean, anything would grow in any nook and cranny it could find, especially eels and poisonous sea snakes.

And, of course, her grandmother had to walk in right as she chucked the scroll at the wall in frustration.

Mai squawked at her grandmother's look as the scroll hit the wall with a cushioned 'chink' and sunk dreamily down to the bottom.

"That—that wasn't me acting like a spoiled brat or anything," said Mai.

Her grandmother just blinked. Then shrugged it off.

"I have something I need to discuss with you."

Instantly, Mai thought of Zen, then shook it off and sat down on her bed where her grandmother was gesturing to. The elderly queen sat down with the usual billow of silver fins and white hair.

"I plan to keep you from such things until you are ready to deal with them appropriately, but, as I'm not stupid, things have a way of not going to plan, especially given how close you seem to be getting with the black boy."

Mai didn't mention that he had a name, but kept quiet. A nervous twisting in her gut, like seaweed caught in a knot, gave her a good idea as to what her grandmother was about to tell her. It made her feel slightly queasy.

Her grandmother seemed to think of the subject with as much distaste as Mai, as her nose had wrinkled and her eyes had darkened within the alcove of her white hair.

"As princess, you are free to choose any man that you wish—within reason. Your husbands will hold little say in policy matters, as that power lies with the maitre and the council—"

"Woah, hang on, you're making it sound like I'm going to be Queen someday or something."

The incredulous look the older woman gave her made Mai feel a million degrees stupid—and more than a little dread.

"Why do you think the matrons have been so keen on your training so quickly?" said her grandmother, none-too-pleased. "I'm not getting any younger, and even if my sons do produce a liable heir, you are the eldest. With this in mind, it is natural to assume that those around you will be very invested into who you should marry. Little political power or not, your husband will have the power to sway your opinion and the way you think. Because of this, I must stress that you refrain from encouraging any advances until I say you are ready, that includes any you may receive from Zen. Especially from Zen."

"Why? What's wrong with him?" She quickly caught herself. "Not that I like him like that or anything."

"I thought that went without saying, Mai. His entire clan was destroyed by an agreement between the governments of the seas. Do you really think he could keep himself unbiased?"

"But that was by people long dead and gone—"

"It was only twenty-four years ago, Mai. I assure you, they are not dead and gone, I being one of them."

Her grandmother's expression had begun to twist and darken even further, and since her free-ranged long hair was left to twist about her head like snakes, it complete the scary image she conveyed. Thus, Mai wisely decided not to argue the point further, especially since she technically agreed with her grandmother. She didn't think she was ready for marriage or mating or whatever they called it down here.

"That being said," said her grandmother slowly, as though regretting what she was about to say. "I need to teach you about the rituals of mating down here. They are separate from the formal agreement of marriage, and men might try to lure you into them."

Mai shivered. "That…doesn't sound nice. I thought you said they weren't rapists?"

"They're men," said the queen flatly.

…So, either there was a whole lot of sexism here, or Mai was just about to be taught how to survive a society filled with rape-happy men. Yay.

A small voice whispered that she wouldn't have had to worry about that with Naru. Being stuck with a man in a cell for a month without him even kissing you, let alone seducing you, when his sole purpose for even being there was to do so was good enough proof of their character in Mai's book.

Her grandmother pulled her hair over her shoulder to begin weaving as she spoke. "Beware of a man's tail. I have the general idea of how humans mate, but down here it naturally works differently, giving the…" her grandmother pinched the bridge of her nose. "You'd think explaining sex to a girl wouldn't be any different from a son."

Oh yeah. So many degrees of blushes and uncomfortable.

Mai threw her hands up. "I know about sex! I've had the talk."

"The human version, yes, which is different. Like I said, beware a man's tail, as in order to mate a man must hook his tailfin about that of a woman's. They have a notch right before the fins in order to do so. This prevents unnecessary floating about, and unlike humans they have to keep themselves in the front in order to-"

Oh God, this was really happening. "I get the idea!"

"Calm down, little one, it's just sex."

Mai's hands fluttered to her face. So many things screamed in her head right now, and so many images and questions she didn't want to know, like just what a merman's _thing_ looked like.

As though reading her thoughts, her grandmother said, "Now, there is a frontal scale between his hips that pulls back when aroused—"

"I don't want to hear anymore! I get it! I just won't hug or—or let any guys hook me or whatever you call it!"

"Best you don't let them near you, but no hugs are a good call. Anyways, it is within tradition that a formal marriage happens before this point, but if the act of mating happens before hand, it is as good as any marriage, though is punished by law if the couple do not officially marry before the appropriate witnesses within ten days. Those who commit adultery are put into prison for twenty years, and that includes those who stupidly play around with the power to create lives." Her grandmother gave her a hard look. "So best the princess not be caught doing such things, yes?"

"Yes, of course, yes, are you almost done?"

"Hardly."

Mai groaned and buried herself within the folds of her tail fins.


	24. On God's Sunburnt Mission

Chapter 23

They arrived at the southernmost coast of the Bahamas early the next morning, with only the lights of the small country to break the silver of moonlight and ocean. Kazuya and Lin were the only ones up to see off the priest, who had nothing but his cross, his scriptures, and his now thoroughly sweat encrusted clothes. While up in the control room, Lin had flipped on their warning lights to alert other boats and the coast guard to their approach, but only after an hour long quiet debate that no one heard.

The red light lit up the young priest's face as he waited anxiously at the railing. Kazuya forced back a yawn.

"I hope you're fine with jumping."

"Of course. I understand the importance of your mission, though I may not know the details. And yes, as you've told me, it's for my own good."

"And it goes unsaid that you've never met me."

"Of course."

They fell quiet. About them the old yacht creaked, and somewhere behind him in the cabins he thought he could hear a can occasionally rolling about with the waves.

"I'm surprised no one has gotten seasick," said Father Brown conversationally.

Kazuya grunted.

"Is there anything else I can do for you before I'm off?"

"You've done more than enough," which was the truth, as Father Brown, despite his lack of knowledge, had managed to work as hard as three men in the short time he had been with them on board.

"Yes, but I'm not immune to the stress of the people here. It's sort of my mission to help where I can. Service is the heart of religion."

Kazuya grunted again. He hadn't much to say to the priest. Maybe it was because his mind had been blown out by the combination of itchy, peeling burned skin, keeping an ear out for a slip up from his over talkative companions, and trying to figure out which dive spot off the Bimini shelf should be first. They wouldn't be able to search too long in the area. Eventually they would be spotted by someone, be it satellite or otherwise.

Not to mention the sooner he got that mermaid agent of the triple A off his ship, the better.

Also, he had been lucky up until this point to avoid conversation with the young priest. Managing conversations with the other nosy, overly-friendly crew mates had been more than enough to preoccupy him.

Just remembering the day and sleepless night behind him made his head ache. And he still hadn't enough evidence that Bimini was where they should go. He had never had to search a deep ocean in such a small time limit, especially for people adept at hiding. While the challenge had originally mixed within him excitement and apprehension, after a week and a half of the hole in his chest gnawing at him, he now only felt exhaustion and dread.

The waves hushed about them. What he wouldn't give for quiet.

And not the awkward kind where a priest little older than yourself kept shooting you looks of curiosity.

Kazuya sighed. "Do you believe in mermaids, Father Brown?"

To his credit, the priest didn't give him too weird of a glance. "Takigawa told me you study mythologies. Is that why you're out here?"

"Sure. And a good portion of my research method is stories. Sadly, I haven't been allowed on land enough to listen to the locals, so I was wondering what you thought."

"Ah…" John's pale fingers rose to scratch at his nose, which he ceased immediately with a wince. If Kazuya had been sunburnt, poor porcelain skinned John had been dipped in lava. Blisters bloomed across his cheeks and forehead like freckles.

"You don't have to answer," said Kazuya, who didn't feel particularly invested with the conversation anyways.

"No, it's fine. I actually heard a few stories from the Bishop of the area. He warned me every so often, maybe once a year, a drunk man would come in to confess he had bed with a mermaid. Different every time, of course, and in varying degrees of soberness. Other than that I wouldn't say I've heard anything unique."

Kazuya smiled quietly to himself. That actually was interesting, and encouraging. If mermaids had the chance to sneak on shore to find men, maybe Bimini wasn't such a far away theory. The waters off the shelf and past the Bimini wall were deep and dropped down to the carbon bed often blamed for the disappearing boats in the Bermuda Triangle. Said bed was reported to be flat, featureless, and occasionally dotted with the wreckage of planes and boats, but nothing else. No features to go off. No clue of where to start.

And he wouldn't know where to start until he got Masako down there, but even if she sang a song and mermen came near her as they did Mai, there was no proof that they could follow her via the tracker unseen, or whether the mermen wouldn't spot his yacht off the bat and kill t hem. The mermen might see it—that is if any came at all. They couldn't wait there all day, and he didn't know how long it would take to find him. He already knew their sonar would be useless, as he had tested his layered plastic mica shield and found it proved to repel the sound waves. The merfolk probably had a shield of such to hide beneath. They were still human, after all, and Kazuya knew more than most just how ingenuitive mankind could be.

And all the while, storms, trackers, satellites, deep water—it all worked against him. The longer he was on the water, the longer he risked his crew's life.

A distant bell sounded on the distant shore. The lighthouse blinked in their direction and back around again.

"Do you believe in mermaids?"

Kazuya didn't even jump. "Not sure."

The priest was quiet for a moment. Then, in a lowered voice unlike him, he said, "I'm not stupid, Mr. Shibuya."

An acid cold prickle of apprehension crawled up the front of his chest, but Kazuya's hands didn't even sweat. He hadn't the room to worry what a simple priest thought of him. In another twenty-four hours they would reach Bimini, and another four hours after that they would reach the small trench that led off into the depths of the Atlantic ocean, where he had decided to begin his search.

But merfolk couldn't dwell in deep waters. Too cold. But, then again, humans couldn't live anywhere other than the desert and African jungles without clothes and look how far they'd gone.

But the moment he started thinking that the gaping maw in his chest would start gnashing.

"That's nice," said Kazuya.

"You're not intending to harm whoever you find out here, are you?"

"Only if they try to harm me," he glanced down at his watch and pushed the little nightlight on. A little clock face lit up with green. Three forty-five. Ungodly hour. Why was he still awake?

"That includes sticking them in that giant tank of yours in the ballroom and running experiments on them. People aren't test subjects."

"Father Brown, you're making a lot of assumptions right now, I'd stop before you make a real fool of yourself."

Father Brown said nothing, though the air between them had become tense and charged in a restrained, awkward sort of way.

After a few moments, in which Kazuya allowed himself a yawn more to give the impression that he didn't care about the conversation, his companion spoke up.

"What can I do to convince you to allow me to go with you?"

Kazuya snorted. "Didn't you have a dying man to save on the Bahamas or something? Don't tell me a priest lied."

"I didn't. He's old, and the last one to…but if you say you can find them—that's what you're looking for, aren't you? The merfolk."

Alarm bells went off in shrills about his skull. John had been hinting that he knew that the entire time, and Kazuya had decided he didn't care if the priest thought he was a loon, but to actually be taken seriously—for the priest to be seeking out the merfolk as well…

Kazuya took a whole new look at the young priest. Before he had just been a hitchhiker he was going to be rid of in an hour. Now he was a man who would possibly be near Mai.

John must have sensed the new level of scrutiny and the none-too-kind air to it, for he visibly retreated a bit down the railing from Kazuya.

"Look, I think I can understand why you lot are so secretive about it—"

He had a radio. He should call up Lin. Let him throw the priest overboard. Better than be sorry if he proved a threat to Mai—and agent of Triple A—a gold seeker—a liar—

"-my mission papers expressed a lot of secrecy too, and so did Jericho, but I swear I mean no harm! I'm only here to share the word of God!"

Kazuya snorted. "With mermaids? And you just happen to be in the prime of your youth and nautically incompetent? Some underwater missionary you are."

"I was trained! I just haven't been under the sun much—"

Kazuya moved for his walkie-talkie. The priest's hand flew up into the air in panic.

"Jericho knows where they are!"

Kazuya paused. "Your dying man?"

"Yes," John said in a forced calm. "Yes, if you will wait for me, I'll go on land, ask him, and you can take me to there. They told me you wouldn't be able to find them any other way."

This story was getting more and more ridiculous by the second. Let him go on land and inform somebody of their presence? And a priest looking for mermaids that just so happens to find his ship?

Kazuya felt sick.

"Who are you?" he asked dryly.

"I'm just as I said," said John. "I'm a priest and a missionary."

Kazuya flicked up his walkie-talkie and pushed the start button.

"Lin, I'm going to need you to come down here."

"Wait," said John. "Shouldn't it be a sign to you that God exists? It couldn't just be a coincidence that I found you in that crowd or that we even happened to be in the same time at the same place! Aren't you a scientist of the impossible? Takigawa said you were. He said you proved if things were real or not—we can help each other! I only want to teach them about their Creator! Jericho's probably dead, we don't even have to see him, just take me with you!"

Lin's boots pattered down the stairs in a rush and across the deck. Kazuya found his eyes darting from the boy's blistered, sunburnt skin to the ratty pocket bible in his coat pocket.

"What can I do to prove my honesty? What are you so afraid of anyways? Who are you running from?"

Lin had his hands on the boy's arms without having to be told so. John yelped at the contact with his sun razed arms.

Then, from somewhere beneath the stress worn, muggy, aching mess of his mind, and idea rose up like a shooting star from the ocean floor.

"Actually, there is one thing we could try. Though, really, Father, you should learn not to run your mouth so much."

 **Just to let you all know, the news is out! My second book is being published! :D For all you folk who are interested. I'll be putting the release date and the synopsis on my profile page.**

 **Otherwise, please let me know what you think of the story so far, both good and bad. I've been loving your reviews.**


	25. Possibly Awkward Sun Communications

**Just, you know, piddling away at the release of my next book and my ghostwriting, trying not to freak out because, you know...life.**

 **Let me know what you think! Oh please oh please oh please! I'm sort of at a crossroads and I'm trying to decide what will happen next!**

Chapter 24

" _Ground control to Major Tom,_ " Mai murmured just above her breath. " _Ground control to Major Tom._ "

She had yet to let go of her empty breakfast coconut, which sat pinned beneath her arm as she gazed out of the kitchen window from the table. Every so often a current, kicked up by a vent or a poof of warm water from the oven, sent an edge of her skirt like tail fin tickling against her back. The fingers of her free hand played with the tail end of a small braid kept apart from the rest of the ties of her hair, done by one of the matrons that morning.

" _Take your protein pills and put your helmet on._ "

She could never remember all the words to that song. Mostly she remembered the sun-rich memory attached to it. Somehow, the vibrations of said memory eased the breath stealing throbs of the ache in her chest. As she hummed the next verse, interspaced with murmurs of " _Ground control to Major Tom,"_ and " _may God's love be with you,_ " she imagined what it might feel like to go up into the open water. Before she had been terrified of being above so much depth, but perhaps, if she could still see the coral and the city below, it would be like flying.

She closed her eyes and tried to imagine it. Flying. Free, with the sun on her back. Zen had described sun as tasting warmth with your skin. She wanted to see if that was right.

The whoosh of pressed water and bubbles announced Zen's arrival. Before looking at him, she remembered her grandmother's last words the night before when Mai had asked why she didn't just forbid her to see Zen if he was such a problem.

' _Because you need experience with men sooner or later. They're not just going to disappear, and at least with Zen you can gain this practice under supervision.'_

Of course, seeing Zen's smiling face didn't stop her from also remembering why she had kept her eyes firmly out the kitchen window since she had arrived that morning. Heat flooded her face.

Because Zen probably had that weird little pair of horns at the base of his tailfins that she had just noticed on other male staff about the palace. Most had been short and none too deadly looking, merely a small raised thorn of scales easily hidden by the movement of a merman's tail as he swam. But she had noticed a few that had seemed longer, even curved, and her grandmother had mentioned that men seeking to draw attention to their sexuality might paint said horns bright colors.

Zen's black color would make doing that easy.

Zen made a little noise of surprise as she squashed her burning face to the table.

"Princess?!"

"It's fine, I promise. I just needed to beat an image out of my head before it killed me."

"Um…what?"

And since Zen was her only friend, and because she wanted some sort of distraction, she started off with, "So, what would you like to do today? I asked my grandma if we could visit my uncle and she said no, of course, but it was worth a try."

"Princess, your ears are, um, pink, are you…?"

"I'm fine. She did say that we could go to the throne room and watch proceedings. There should be enough people there, and the chef is supposed to keep tabs on when we leave and whatnot. Jeeze, it's like I'm a prisoner."

"Oh, alright, it—may I hear what you thinking?"

"No," she said flatly, and she could sense his flinch as a little brush of water from his tail brushed against hers. The thought of his tail didn't help in cooling her face. Really, she was being stupid. It wasn't like a male's horns were kept hidden. They averaged on the size of her pinky and weren't even that noticeable. Heck, she hadn't even noticed them until her grandmother pointed them out, and it wasn't like poor Zen was going to hook her up somewhere.

Oh heavens, why did she even think that?

He followed after her rather cautiously when she sat up and gave the chef the words her grandmother told her to say. The chef, of course, didn't look happy about it, but then he didn't look happy about much and he let them go all the same.

As they weaved out into the hall, she found herself watching their blurred reflection in the polished floors. Because of his black coloring, she could only see his pale torso and face.

"Hey, Zen?"

"Yes?"

"You…you said your best friend was your sister?"

"She has two sons in city. Died birthing the second."

"Do, um, you don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but do you and her remember your family? I mean, I was told you were brought here from your clan and…" oh Lord, she might as well talk about sex. "Sorry, forget I said anything, I shouldn't, aw man."

To her surprise, he moved up to her side in one smooth paddle of his tail. Beneath the luminescent glow of jellyfish lanterns, she noticed for the first time the sheen of his scales reflecting the little globes of colors like polished mirrors of obsidian.

His expression wasn't scolding, but open, as it always was, and kind. Zen was always kind.

"It alright," he said, gentle as his fingers had been rubbing pearly flecks from her eyes. "My sister remember more our clan than I. I was two. She six. We raised by maitre-ders as family. We…ugh," his expression twisted in familiar frustration. "Are. I forgot are. Or was? Was raised?"

Distracted by his faulty English, he swam past her, running a hand through his hair in frustration. Mai used her arms to catch up to him in a broad breast stroke.

"It's fine, Zen, I can understand you. And it just takes practice."

"You should correct me."

"Yeah, but then I'd sound like a nagging wife—nanny. I meant nanny."

As her fluster returned, she could feel the heat returning to her neck. Just as she started to scold herself for even making a big deal out of saying the word 'wife,' Zen had come to a complete stop in a small, decorative alcove just before the turn that would lead them to a room just behind the dais in the grand hall, where the queen often greeted guests with the matron council.

"Princess, please, what is wrong?"

And because she had seen this show and new just denying it would make him more curious, she gave him the flat truth. "My grandma gave me the sex talk last night, so forgive me if I'm a bit awkward around you."

She expected him to take it as coolly as her grandmother had, and at first he did. But then he must have caught her reflexively looking at his tail, which rested on the floor beneath them to hold him in place as they talked, for when she snapped her eyes back up his cheeks had flushed and he had hunched up his shoulders.

"Oh," he said.

"I wasn't looking!" she lied quickly. "I'm just—it's just—I'm so sorry, Zen, it's just so weird for me, I was raised human and—"

"It is alright," he said quickly. "I understand, really. Curious. It is no problem, here."

And he brought up his tail fins for her to see.

There they were. His own small pair of black horns, right at the base of his split tail fins.

Or rather, just one of them.

At first Mai jerked back reflexively, as though a guy had just randomly dropped his pants in front of her. But as he made no signs of coming for her, just stood (as well as one could with a fish tail for legs) before that little alcove with his tail fin at level with his hips, she nervously allowed herself to take a closer look, even going as far as to draw closer.

Where his second horn should have been was a bright pink scar. The remaining horn was nothing remarkable, and could have passed for a particularly thick black scale sticking out where it shouldn't.

"What happened?" she asked.

He pulled back his tail self-consciously. "I…my family. My...some wronged by my clan got me when fifteen and, um, no marry with, a—man with one horn considered ugly, or impotent. Common punishment for black clan. They tried to get both, but escape."

He was the reddest she had seen him yet and wouldn't meet her eye. A sad, sick pity had clotted near the bottom of her rib cage.

"So you no—do not have worry," he said quickly. "I, um, if you're curious, it—it is okay. I am use to it."

"Who did that?" she asked.

He shrugged. "We best hurry. They will know we too long in halls alone."

They swam on, this time Zen leading and Mai following up. Every so often she could catch the flash of the pale pink scar on his tail.

"You want to see sun, right?"

The back room, where servants usually prepared for the woman's feast once a month, opened up before them. She could hear the clicks and v's of the mermish language up ahead, where her grandmother would be working with various groups.

"Yeah, but my grandmother already said no."

He stopped just before the seaweed woven curtain into the great hall. A deep rumble of a voice, that didn't sound unlike an eruption of a thermal vent, wove through the delicate timbre of the matron's voices. Mai thought of the boy faced giant, Vovo, and wondered if they'd ever meet again.

"If…if we went in secret…"

She stared at him as he glanced at her with his chin ducked behind one shoulder. His naked eyes probed her own, cautious as always, and just a little bit…excited.

"No merfolk permitted outside of city," he said quietly. "Not without permit."

Mai didn't say anything. She had figured that on realizing that she had yet to see anyone wearing the same black stone chokers that Vovo and his men had, and that she hadn't once seen any merfolk besides the occasional repairmen rising up from the city to the surface.

"I know way, I sneak to see sun, but…" the dark of his eyes wavered, and her heart clenched. He was trusting her. If she told anyone he had snuck out, he, one of the last of the black assassins that baked themselves in the sun, breaking a law would be the least of his worries.

She glanced at the pink scar on his tail. He had little hopes for marriage anyways, or even being able to stand on his own should he ever get a husband-brother. At least, she couldn't imagine him fairing well, not after seeing how her uncle Lucrise had to deal with. The power struggle between men…and her grandmother had gone into gruesome detail as to why men had two.

Zen turned to her, caution done away with for earnestness, his hands held open to her.

"It is what you want. You do not have to. Just a offer, because I—I know how hard it been for you. I know you ache. I see your eyes all mornings, see you cried, see you suffer. My sister tell me of our people and the sun, tell me the sun helps sadness. And…and you love sun. You miss it. And I will protect you—no human, no shark, will touch you, precious, precious princess."

A warm shiver dropped down her back at the low, reverent way he murmured those last words. He caught her eyes as he said it so she couldn't miss the sincerity in his gaze…or the affection.

Then his fingers reached out to brush so lightly against her cheek, it could have just been the brush of the water as it moved with him.

Then it was gone and he was back at the door with his back to her, a curtain open, and only bubbles in the space he had occupied before her.

"Maiti of Warriors is speaking. You will want to hear, no?"

He moved to pass through, but she reached out to stop him, and her fingers managed to catch to his elbow. He looked back with expectant surprise.

"Alright," she breathed. "I want to see it. I want to see the sun."


	26. Because He Can't Always Be SuperHuman

**An update a day later because I've already got the ending planned and I'm just way to excited to see how you guys react.**

 **Review! I want to see if I've got you where I want you...}**

 **(or if I've missed anything...)**

Chapter 25

Takigawa munched on a breakfast burrito as he leaned on the railing next to Kazuya, who sat on the deck with a tote of scuba gear next to him. He had a safety checklist pinned beneath his calf, which he referred to every so often as he went through goggles, breathers, suits, and various straps.

"So we totally missed sending off the priest. You didn't throw him into the water rather than docking, did you?"

"If it helps any, he jumped." Kazuya squinted at the number inside of a pair of googles and scribbled down something besides the laminated checklist.

"It would have only taken you a few minutes. And if there were any of those Feds or whatever, they would have just shot you off shore anyways."

Naru grunted. How did this filter get filled with seaweed? He'd have to ask Lin. Could be a possible leak.

"Which brings me to the case and point," continued Takigawa, swallowing. "Why do I have to blow up too? I'm just a bystander."

"Classic thriller, remember? You're gone through association."

"Huh."

"Sorry about that."

Takigawa nearly choked, which almost offended him. Did they think he wasn't sorry? What human being wouldn't be?

"Wow, boss, I didn't expect that."

Okay, now he was offended. "Do you honestly think I'd take pleasure in ruining your lives?"

"No, it's just—we don't know that much about you. You're usually not in the mood to, you know, talk much."

"I can't imagine anyone would be in my situation. And I thought _I_ had problems with empathy."

"Sorry! Really! If it helps any, we don't think you're, like, evil or anything. Someone who helps out a priest and chases after a girl he loves can't be all that bad, right?"

"Don't you have work to do?"

Takigawa sighed and stuffed the rest of his burrito in his mouth before leaving.

Kazuya's peace was short lived, as Takigawa's spot was soon filled by Yasu, who was grungier than ever with a week's worth of engine oil staining his arms and spiking up his hair.

"Are you always this snappy?"

"What do you want, Yasu?"

He grunted as he dropped besides Kazuya and stuck his legs out through the railing. "Just to say hi. Also, I need to bathe. Is it okay if I go for a swim? Water rations and all that."

Kazuya tugged on a strap to a suit and grimaced as it stuck hard with salt deposits. "Don't need my permission. Just jump."

"Yeah, but I don't want to drown either. You'll fish me back up, right? I'll be in a floaty, you can't miss me."

Again, Kazuya felt insulted. "Why would I let you drown?"

Yasu made a show of looking at him in shock and touching a hand to his heart. "Captain, I didn't know you felt that way about me."

Kazuya glared. Yasu grinned.

"It's okay, boss, I know you're all show. I can't wait till we find your girl, it's going to be hilarious. I bet you're all bashful and awkward when you're in love."

The strap in his hands snapped taunt, free of the salt blocks. "Shut up."

"What's she like, anyways? You're Mai. Is she a firecracker? Or is she all quiet and sweet?"

Kazuya almost told him to leave too, along with another snap of the strap to give the command a bit of extra threat, but he somehow found he couldn't. Instead, he found his arms weakening and his head dropping down to the pile of diving suit in his lap.

When was the last time he had slept? Like really slept, not taken a little doze against a wall or in a chair?

"Woah! You okay?"

"I'm fine. Just tired."

"Can you even hear me? Hey—holy-boss, you're burning up!"

It was only when he felt Yasu's cold hand on his forehead that he realized he hadn't just dropped his head in his lap like he had thought. He had full on keeled over onto his side and the hard wood of the deck felt oddly soft against his head.

He swore. Not now. He didn't have the time for this, not with that mermaid still on board and John's message coming in an hour.

His arms pushed up like hinges rusted shut. Kazuya found himself stuck midway to sitting up, his head hanging and rolling between his shoulders—wait, no, that was the water. The ocean.

He could see the remains of his peeling sunburnt skin on his arms. What remained was a dark tan. When had he last done anything for that? He'd look so strange with his shorts off. Mai would have laughed; called it the tanline of the century.

"Hey! I need help over here! Kazuya's sick!"

"Shut up, I'm fine. Get your hands off me."

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that."

The thud of shoes vibrated through his hands. The sun filled his vision. He had fallen over again. As a figure broke between him and the sun, their shadow became outlined in gold. He could see short hair, and thought of the sun on scales, gold and copper; a pirate's treasure of the sea.

"Mai?"

"He's shaking and has a fever," said Yasu. "I think it might be heat stroke."

"Or exhaustion," said another voice. "When was the last time he's slept?"

"Would _you_ be able to sleep in his shoes?"

Kazuya blinked hard. His eyes were burning. Because he knew whoever leaned over him wasn't Mai. But that didn't change how much the want for it to be gnawed on him, like teeth to raw, skinless flesh.

He couldn't be sick. He couldn't fail now. Only an hour to go, then he'd have to take Masako—he'd have to be convincing—

Strong arms lifted him up by his arm. Two bodies slid in on either side, an arm of his pulled over shoulders. His knees wobbled with the ship.

"Lin," he said, the urgency and irrational grief threatening to swallow his voice whole.

"I'll take care of it. Rest."

He wanted to refuse it. He wanted to scream in frustration. Where had this come from? He had been perfectly awake and in his own body while he sat there with the scuba gear. He had even chosen to do that because he felt tired. He had just been giving himself a break. What had pushed his body over the edge?

The next thing he knew, he was in a bath tub, and someone was putting a pillow behind his head.

"Don't worry, Cap't, we'll cool you down. You just get some sleep." Yasu's voice sounded oddly comforting.

"What is this?"

"Just pouring some cold water on you, then I'm taking you down to the coolers next to the engine room. It's noisy down there, but it's a lot cooler than your bedroom. Try not to stress, alright? We're going to keep a look out for her while you rest. But just in case, what's your girl look like?"

Kazuya groaned and tried to open his eyes to glare at him, but he never felt so disinclined to open his eyes in his life. It was dark here, and the ocean waves were quieter. He was getting tired of their sound, and a blackness promised to shut them off completely.

"Copper," he breathed. "Short copper hair. Brown eyes."

"Copper? So she's a ginger?"

It was getting blacker. Yasu was getting farther. The screaming hole in his chest was rising to his mouth in a shaking sigh.

And he was out.


	27. Because It's the Best that Go Down

**Because I don't think the last cliffhanger was enough.**

 **And I've super enjoyed your reviews. They've made me feel positively diabolical. I've got you right where I want you.**

 **R &R homies**

Chapter 26

He came to her in the early morning hours, before the black of the ocean turned gray. At first she didn't see him at all. Then the glow of one of her jellyfish glinted off scales. Only then did she see the rest of him, black as night. Not a speck of his white skin shown.

Fear had hold on her throat until his soft voice reminded her why he was here.

"Princess, we must hurry. Sunrise is near."

"What about the guard?"

"Shh." He reached out to her and pushed something into her hand: a black, cool ball that felt slightly tacky in her palm.

"Put on your skin. It no stick to scales well, but try scales too."

She got to work, rubbing the black on her arms. It went on like paint, sucking up her arms and then her chest and stomach into the shadows. With her permission, Zen did her back and ran it over her tied back hair. He wouldn't touch her tail, however, even when she asked, so she didn't push it. As he said, it didn't stick well to scales, but it blunted their sheen a bit so they didn't catch the light as well.

"Window," he whispered. "Then I will take your hand and lead you. Alright?"

She nodded and followed the black slip of his shadow to the window, where, after careful maneuvering to get his shoulders through, he vanished into the night. Shutting of her brains attempts to make her second guess this choice, she pulled herself through as well. Some of the carefully placed black rubbed off on the stone and she could see the lights from the city below glimmer off her scales.

Zen's hand took hers, warm and not too big. Quiet as he was invisible, he pulled her up the palace and into the dark dips and ravines the rocks made on its roof as the cliff swallowed up the building.

All she could see was the occasional off-pitch-black glow of the city below. The ocean breathed, and she could hear her hands as she caught herself against the stone. Zen was very careful, though, and she didn't have to do it often. She found herself wondering, as his strong tail beat besides her, at how smooth his scales felt against her skin. Strange, that they would have scales at all. As far as she knew, merfolk were still mammals, as they lactated and gave birth to live young, were warm-blooded, and had hair. No mammal she knew of had scales, though.

Suddenly the water about her fell empty of stone and she got the impression of being high up in a very dark open space. Her heart picked up in speed and she clutched hard to Zen's hand. How did he knew where he was going? How could he see in this dark?

"It okay. I got you."

The sound of his voice only proved to her of the empty space in which they drifted, and she couldn't help the little squeak from escaping her.

Zen's tail beat faster besides her. The water grew heavy as they picked up speed.

Then, all at once, the water grew clear and silver. She could see the surface, and then—

It broke away, and cold, ever light air burst about her. She gasped for it, her unused lungs sparking with ice needles after so long of being unused. It was like breaking through a film or out of an egg, and as she raised her arms above the restriction of the water she felt free and light. Water, after all, was so much heavier than air.

And she could see the stars, countless, billions of stars; whole curtains of stairs draped across the expansive dome above her. No moon shone that night, and staring up into them she thought if she just kicked her tail down hard enough, she'd be set loose from the water and allowed to fly up and up into the feather light air.

"Look. Dawn."

Zen's black arm pointed to the horizon, where light blue and pink promised the sun he spoke of. The ocean waters turned steel gray beneath their touch.

Mai laughed out loud.

"I've never seen anything so beautiful! I've never felt the air—has it always been so light?"

Her delight must have been contagious, as Zen too laughed, catching her up in the happy music it made.

"Best we hide in the coral till the sun rises. There may be guards nearby—watchers for humans."

"Do we have to? Oh, I feel I might be crushed if we go down, how wasn't I?"

Zen hesitated. "If you were black as I, we could. But any light will reflect off your scales-"

"Isn't there a way we could cover them?" She looked about in vain for something like a blanket nearby. "Like seaweed or something?"

"It only take the barest trace of scale. You are bright, princess."

"Oh!" She pouted down at the wave which lifted them up momentarily, trying hard not to do something stupid like crying. "Alright. Just give me a minute."

Zen nodded. "I will keep sight below."

His dark face, so easily seen against the rainbow of stars behind him, perfectly vanished into the black waters below.

For a split second in time, Mai felt utterly and terrifyingly alone in a strange, empty world of stars and waves as far as the eye could see. It only lasted until she gave in and dropped down into the waters, where she only had to wait but a breath before Zen's hands found her own in the dark.

"Come."

He pulled her down like a weight. After the air the water pressing past her felt as heavier than if he pulled her through the earth itself.

Then she felt the soft brushes of seaweed and the brush of his hands as he looped some into her hand.

"Hold on, so not drift."

Then his hands left hers.

"Zen?"

"I'm here."

"But I can't see. Please don't let go."

And his hand was back in hers.

Together they watched as the waters above the waving reaches of the seaweed forest turned lighter gray, and then clear, heart breaking blue. Light started to dance across the surface, making Mai feel as though she were looking up through a rippling pane of glass rather than a distant ocean surface.

Then the glimmering surface went brilliant white.

And Zen was pulling her up, his black body no longer invisible.

She broke through again—another rebirth into the air—

To be blinded by light. She had forgotten so much light even existed in the world. It hurt. Probably because she was trying to stare right at the sun.

Zen laughed.

She, however, thought she could already feel the warmth through the sea spray. Eventually she was satisfied enough to turn her face away, where she blinked until she could see Zen's broad white smile, all the more prominent in his black face.

"If I knew you would blind yourself, I would no bring you here."

"The correct word is 'not.' You would 'not' bring me here."

His grin widened. "So sorry."

"No you're not."

He urged her to say little, though, as he watched the sky with her. She had forgotten how blue it could be, or how staring up into it could make your eyes water. Her heart longed to search for land to feel the heat of the sun upon her legs and dig her toes into the sand.

She was just scanning the horizon wistfully for said spit of land when a wave lowered and a tiny yellow life boat appeared, tipping over its peak.

Zen reacted instantly. So fast her shoulder popped, he yanked her beneath the waves.

"Ack! Wait!"

He didn't answer. Nor did he slow. In seconds they were swallowed up by seaweed and going deeper.

"Zen! Please!"

"Quiet!"

"It's a life boat! They need—ompff!"

He'd twisted about, yanked her into his chest, and slapped his hand over her mouth. Having so much contact with his skin startled silence out of her.

"And what, save humans? Let them go shore saying saved by mermaid?"

The sharp hiss to his whisper made her cringe. This part of him she'd never heard before: all low and aggressive.

She tried to say something past his hand, but he didn't move it. Irritated, she tapped his hand hard. Just as she was debating on biting it, he pulled it back and twisted her to face him, his grip almost painful on her arms.

"This is not play," he growled, eyes hard as coals. "I will not let you go near it."

"What if it's a child? What if they've been on sea forever? Zen, if they say anything, who's going to believe them?"

"People who look for us." His brow furrowed. "People who hurt you."

A single bubble drifted up from her mouth in surprise. At this, his hands loosened their grip.

"I'm sorry, princess. I will not let go till they pass. I will not let you get hurt."

"I'm sorry too."

Just as he opened his mouth to ask 'why?' Mai belted the highest note she could manage.

While her grandmother had called it 'singing,' it was more of a screech than anything, but attempting to sing it was what made the difference between the high, piercing note and just pointless screaming.

As her grandmother said every man would do, Zen recoiled from her, hands to his ears and crying out in pain.

Mai shot up towards the light. She pinned her arms to her side, trying to be as streamline as possible as she fought against the heavy water, assisted by the air she still held in her lungs.

Without meaning to, she shot clear out of the water and above the waves. As she cried out in surprise, just above the tips of the waves, she spotted the life boat and the lone occupant within it.

She came back down with a splash.

But she didn't have time to spare. No sooner had her eyes rushed with water, she kicked off in the direction of the boat. Zen would only be stunned for ten seconds, less depending on how prepared he was.

She had underestimated her speed. No sooner had she set off than she came beneath the rubber yellow underbelly.

The person in the boat yelped in alarm when her arms shot out of the water to grasp the side of the boat. She tried her best to look harmless as she pulled herself over and took quick inventory of the human inside.

A young man sat within it, horribly blistered with sunburns and wearing what could only be described as a tarp above his head like a little tent. Startled blue eyes blinked back at her from beneath it.

"You!" he gasped.

"Do you need help?" she asked.

"I-I, uh—"

"Quick!"

The boy threw up his hands in alarm, dropping the tarp in the process and revealing a mess of straw colored hair.

"Dr. Shibuya sent me! He-he told me—are you Mai?"

What happened in her heart couldn't be described.

"Kazuya?" she pushed out. "Kazuya Shibuya?"

The boy gave her a wobbly, weak smile. "Yes. He's looking for you, Mai, to the west of the Bimini islands. He can't come too close, but I found your place from another. I didn't expect to find you, though."

"Where—"

But her time ran out. Hands clamped about her middle and tore her from the side of the boat. She heard the cry of the young man as a dark shape filled up the waters before her, blurred with the flash of sunlit glass surface.

"Zen! No!"

For hidden by his black had been a narrow black strap, from which he proceeded to pull out a long, thin bone dagger.

Zen lashed out. The boat made an explosive hiss as the blade nearly cut it in two and air rushed out.

Within seconds the blond boy had been dumped into the water, eyes clenched, hands to the surface, legs kicking—

And Zen was upon him.

Mai screamed and threw herself on his back.

"He knows Naru! He's a messenger! Zen, don't hurt him!"

But what she could see through the bubbles and Zen's shoulder had turned pink.

" _ZEN!_ "

To her surprise, he gave way to her tugs. Suddenly, she and he were moving back. His muscles rippled beneath her arms and stomach, and his tail beat hard beneath hers.

And they broke into air.

Zen twisted out of her grip, black face ferocious.

"Get down!"

But Mai, in her terror, turned furious.

"No! He knows my friend! He says he didn't drown!"

Zen's furious expression faltered only just. "Your killed friend?"

"Yes! He said his name and everything! He was sent out here!"

And being sure to give him a good whack of her tail as she passed, she dove beneath his arm to the dark figure trailing curls of red, like smoke, as it flailed in the water. In her rush she held her breath, forgetting she had gills.

Her arms wrapped about his chest unhindered. As they broke the surface gasping, though, Zen was there, eyes glinting within his dark painted face and bone dagger held at the ready just beneath the surface.

A wave lifted and dropped them in passing.

"Are you okay?" she asked the choking boy breathlessly. "Where did he hurt you?"

"Give…give me a mo…" he wheezed, hacking out streams of salty water. "Oh Lord."

"We got to get him to shore," she said.

"Blood attracts sharks," said Zen harshly. "We'll all die."

"We got to do something! He's bleeding out!"

The young blond man reached out and grasped her shoulders. "Listen, just….there's a radio on the boat. Kazuya will be calling any minute to check in on me. You need to—you need to get it. Tell him you're okay—"

"You mean tell him to come rescue you! Zen!"

Zen had vanished before Mai had even finished her sentence. She turned her attention back to the boy, trying to see through the water for where the blood leaked out.

"It's incredibly bright out here," said the boy, as though dazed.

"What's your name? How do you know Nar-Kazuya?"

"Oh, he gave me a lift down in Cuba. Was going to drop me off in the Bahamas before he…before I said something rather stupid, really." He blinked at her, and his brow furrowed. "I didn't actually expect to…do you know about our Lord and Savior?"

"What?"

"Just thought I'd ask while I still had the time."

"You're going to be fine. Zen! Zen, where did you go?"

Just in time, Zen's head broke the surface, along with what looked to be a plastic encased box with a speaker on it and knobs. It's antenna trailed along with it like the tail of a sting ray.

Sound was crackling from the speaker, shorting out through the waves.

 _"—Jo—do you—Father-_ -"

Mai pushed the radio to the boy, who fumbled for the button on the side.

"I found her." He said. "Kazuya? Are you there?"

 _"—co-do you-hear me!?"_

"Naru!" she screamed into the radio. "He's hurt! You've got to hurry!"

 _"—copy—where's your-whozzzz_ -"

The radio buzzed out into white noise. Then, abruptly, gave up the ghost.

John clicked the buttons and twisted the dial, though it seemed half heartedly. His eyelids had lowered and his hand less adept.

"Pardon," he said. "I…just a bit light headed."

Mai looked to Zen, but she couldn't read the expression on his face. It frightened her.

"Hey, hey, stay with me! Tell me where you're hurt, I can stop the bleeding."

"Not sure how you can do that." The young man's voice had gone whispy. "But do you know of God and his love for you?"

"Zen, please, go down, grab me some seaweed—"

"It no use," he said. "My knife went to his belly and I see no boat."

The blond young man, who had been kicking weakly, wilted. She had to kick furiously to stay afloat. His head lolled onto his shoulders and his face dipped into the water. She pulled it back.

"Don't—don't do this! Come on, stay with me!"

But the boy just looked at her. Just looked at her, the brilliant blue of his eyes darkening as his pupil expanded.

He didn't blink.


	28. Just Plain Pining

**Posting this because I need your guy's help. See end of chapter for detail. Kind of major...**

Chapter 27

Kazuya woke up to the rumble of the engine. The room was dimly lit by morning sunlight, and he could hear the steady breathing of someone asleep in the room with him. With a good deal of effort, he propped himself up from the cot he had been laid on and took in the tiled cooler room and the sleeping form of Yasu on the floor.

He gave Yasu a good look, thinking hard. The boy had a room. Did he sleep there for him?

Then what happened came crashing down on his head. He threw off the blanket, heart racing, fighting against the spell of head rush to get on his feet.

He had to find Lin. He had learn what John had found, if he found anything at all.

The decks of the ship were sleepily empty in the early morning sunshine. Naru barely gave the jewel like wonder of dawn a glance. The light hurt his head.

As expected, Lin was in the control room. Why Lin hadn't dropped from exhaustion like Kazuya was beyond him, as he had to have as little sleep as him. Then again, he didn't have any attachment to Mai.

"Report," he said, closing the door tightly behind him.

Lin turned from the counter and slipped off a dark pair of headphones. Behind him was an ancient, simple block of a radio.

"I heard her," he said.

His heart skipped and stuttered. "How do you know it is her?"

Lin gave Naru a pained smile. "She called you Naru."

Naru's knees went weak. He scrambled for a chair just in time to catch himself.

"And the priest?"

Here, Lin's weak smile fell.

"I've lost contact with him."

"The tracker?"

"Went out twenty minutes after the radio, but I have the coordinates."

While his heart hammered out hot blood spiked with excitement, his stomach contracted into an ice stone. He had planned to rendezvous with John before the sun rose, that is, if he had been able to find his Jericho. He'd given him the portable radio partner to his owns as a safe way of communication.

"Masako?" he asked, afraid of the answer.

Lin shook his head. "I couldn't find a second tracker. All we have is the one. We're just going to have to trust her to do as we ask."

"But we can't—" Kazuya ran his arms over his head and let out a quiet, closed mouth yell into his elbows.

Lin nodded in understanding. Neither of them were stupid. Even if Masako had sworn to help them in return for assistance on living wherever she pleased (as had been the arrangement made before), everyone knew words were just words, and Lin had still had to cut into her thigh to extract triple A's tracking device. Lin had suspected she had a second, though she had denied it, and thus far Masako's relationship with any on board had consisted to…nothing much at all. She hated Lin especially, and usually ended up tucked away in a corner where everyone could see her and she could see everyone else. She hadn't bothered to try and escape into the ocean like she had before without her tracking device, which said three things to Kazuya: she depended more on their deal than he gave her credit for; didn't trust her own ability to survive in open ocean (equivalent to a human being dumped into the wilderness); or she was still secretly leading the triple A behind them.

And Kazuya had wanted to narrow down as many 'what ifs' as he could, especially if that involved leading a threatening force of humans into a merfolk population that had gone through every effort to protect themselves. Thus, he had worked with John to contact him if he should get the coordinates of the secret Atlantis should he find Jericho. John, after all, would still need a ride and gear to preach to his merfolk. The money he had given Kazuya to repair and fuel his boat had turned out to be his funds for purchasing said gear, but, as John said before, 'The Lord will provide.'

Once he had the coordinates, John was to meet Kazuya there while Lin sent Masako in another direction (Kazuya had plans to rent a ride on a tugboat or something, much as John planned to). But, apparently, John had met up with something close to the mark.

Which meant Kazuya was back to plan A: depending on Masako to both find and communicate with the merfolk.

And if John had happened to be found by them and possibly killed, Masako might be there only chance to survive their wrath as well.

And Kazuya really hated how much he was depending on someone he did not trust.

Kazuya lowered his arms to glare through his fingers, his heel bouncing on the floor.

"You should eat something," said Lin, standing from the chair.

"Are we on our way to the coordinates?"

"Yes. I've set a spot some ways away, however, as a precautionary measure."

"When will we get there?"

"Around noon."

"Can we sail there? I'd rather not introduce our presence with a roaring engine."

"I'll put them up in two hours if the wind is favorable. If not, up an hour before our destination. How does oatmeal sound?"

"As good as anything. Some tea would be nice."

Lin bowed his head and left in his usual, quiet way.

Only once his footsteps had faded away from off the steps to the control room did Kazuya finally allow himself to tip his head back and smile, although it didn't last long. John was probably dead because of him. That was nothing to celebrate for. One crewman down in his quest to be reunited with Mai.

But he couldn't think like that, he told himself. He didn't kill John. They had simply been two parties with a common interest, and he hadn't told John to wheedle his way onto his ship.

Nevertheless, it didn't help the horrible mix of excitement and the guilt it induced from making him crunch over with his arms about his gut. He hadn't wanted anyone hurt. He had never imagined what it would be like to have blood on his hands, indirectly or otherwise. He had only wanted to see Mai—to be with her, however that had to happen. That's all. Was it such a crime?

"Damn it," he growled, clenching his suddenly burning eyes shut. "Damn it all to hell."

God, he wanted to see her. He wanted to see her so bad.

 **I've entered the novel I was preparing for self-publishing into a contest, that if it wins it will get a publishing deal. Trick of the game? I need to be able to get rid of 100 copies of the book. SO, for a free copy of my next book!**

 **1\. go to Inkitt (it's a free writing site like , except posh and for real)**

 **2\. search up "Erase Me"**

 **3\. There are two "Erase Me" story. Mine is by Lowefantasy and has a cover of a girl with black and purple hair erasing a board.**

 **4\. there should be a blue button on the left hand side that says "Get free copy"**

 **5\. Once you get a free copy, if you're interested, please read it and leave a review! It's a fairly short novel, so it shouldn't take too much of your time. ^.^ I'd love to hear what you think.**


	29. Assassins Have Trust Issues

**So it wasn't as long as I thought, so I hope to be updating the next chapter either today or tomorrow.**

 **Btw, I still got 60 free books I need to get rid of in the next three days! Look at the author's note at the end of the previous chapter for how to get it. If you could leave a review that would be even better! 'Erase Me' is a small novel that should only take you a few hours to read.**

Chapter 28

Zen led her back to the sandy ocean body with care after prying the unblinking body from her numb hands. There he tucked her unfeeling, stunned body into the curve of his tail and gently rubbed away the black paint from her skin with sand. His fingers were as gentle as ever, and in the brief passing of their gazes Mai saw an agonizing, nigh crippling regret in his eyes that didn't make it onto his still, impassive face. It would have been too much for a mortal face to convey, and there was more going on within him than she was able to understand in her own state.

After cleaning her face, he brushed his lips upon her brow.

"I only meant to keep you safe, as I had promised…Mai…"

She couldn't look at him. Nor did he make her.

Only once she was clean did he set off to cleaning himself, as the black would be detrimental once the sun was out and they had to hide from those deeper than they.

"The way back through narrow chimney," he said as he worked. "I made sure to block—it in unused quarter—but best not to leave it too long just in case. Did not go in night because I worry it frighten you, though I can go back alone and you can go through window. You be in trouble, but not as much as with me."

"He'll be coming," her mouth said.

"What?"

She asked the same thing of herself. It took her a moment to find the trail that her mouth had been following back to her brain, where a throbbing sun had begun to burn and shine.

"Naru. He'll be coming for me." She looked up at Zen. "Will the guards react to humans like you did?"

He winced. "If humans draw to close, yes, but if he just pass over—"

"He won't. He probably has a way to track down that guy—he was only in a life boat, he would have…" Heat and feeling pulsed through her limbs. "We've got to stop him."

Zen blanched. "You do not know where he is!"

"But I know where he's coming from, I'll catch his attention before he gets here." Before he could catch her, she wiggle out from the intimate curl of his tail, but was caught by the last thing she expected.

Caught against the ridge of her tailfins was his one horn, twisted about by the end of his tail.

A whole new vibrating heat shocked through her.

He tugged her down with it, dark eyes set and mouth thin. Once he had his hands on her again, he quickly undid his tail about her and brought it behind him and as far from her as possible.

"Don't," he said. "They be looking for you by now. Once they see I gone too, I could die, and he die too once they find you—and they will find you. You are much a danger to him as merman. We go back."

"Fine, then you go back, but I have to find him. All I need you to do is point me in the direction of Bimini. If they find me before I find him, I'll at least know I tried."

"No!" he cried. "There are sharks and—and fast currents and humans and—"

"And I can't let you get in trouble for just helping me to see the surface."

His expression fell and darkened. "You should not care for my life. I killed your human."

She cocked her head at him. "I should be pissed at you for that, shouldn't I? I've never seen someone die before, let alone in my arms. And he was innocent."

Zen pushed back from her, releasing her to pull an arm over his chest and bow his head.

"But I'm not," she said, carefully. "Maybe it's still the shock, but I know why you did it and…but now I just want to see him more. And if he's alive—if he's alive…I have to go, Zen. I'll get over hating you later. It will be a big fight, we'll yell, I'll ignore you, maybe throw a few things at you, we'll go through hell, but we'll be friends again."

He glanced up at her through a passing drift of black hair, bewildered. "What?"

"We'll be friends again. But you need to get going. If you're worried about me lend me your dagger."

"No, wait, I…" his gills just about vanished into his ribs. "You…you will forgive me? But I—no, you have not…I?"

She did her best to smile at him. Her face didn't seem to want to remember. "I won't forgive you if you don't take care of yourself and head back to the palace without me."

Instant derailment—all prospect of hope vanished from his expression and his mouth once more tightened with grimness. "I rather you hate me then never come back at all. Do not make me make you, princess."

Mai did feel the full weight of his threat. She had seen him move with that dagger and felt his strength as he tugged her beneath the water. Along with the dark camouflage paint, a part of her knew he hadn't been kept completely out of the dark concerning the practices of his forgotten clan. And old tricks rarely worked twice, so her screech probably wouldn't work as well a second time.

Before this, she wilted.

"Zen…" her heart was pounding, not any faster, but harder, and it hurt. It was like her heart was trying to force its way through her chest. "Zen, please."

In answer, his tail swept out from beneath him and wrapped about hers like a whip. He gave a quick chop to the side of her neck, and her world went dark.

The last thing she heard was his apology.


	30. The Assassin and the Scientist

**Only 38 free copies of my book left and three days to get rid of them! Please help!**

 **For how to get one, check out the footnote at the end of Chapter 27.**

Chapter 29

Somehow, his body forced him to be unconscious for the last few hours before they reached their destination. He didn't need to be woken up. The moment the engine switched off his eyes were open. He had gone back down to the coolness of the cooler room, so Yasu was there to greet him as he sat up. He had stuffed his bedclothes into a corner next to one of the freezers.

"Hey, boss. Heard the good news. You ready to see your ginger?"

In answer, Kazuya found his sandals and pulled them on. His hands were shaking.

"Takigawa and Ayako are manning the sails the last distance, but they're waiting for your orders. I'm guessing you want me back here with the ship."

"Yes."

"So decisive! Sweet, because I still have that bath to take care of. I don't want to meet any beautiful mermaids looking like a slob, eh? Screw a sea bath, mermaids are worth the water rations."

As Yasu had talked, Kazuya had found his T-shirt, thought better of it, and left it where it lay by his pillow on the cot. He would be putting on a scuba suit soon anyways. Should he wear his shorts under the suit or bother with a swimsuit? Wait, wasn't it easier to go naked? Wait, why was he even thinking about this?

"Yasu, if you see any mist you're to back the ship out as quick as possible."

Yasu gave him a weird look. "Are you awake yet?"

"I'll give you details up top once you're finish with the cool down."

"You make this sound like a space ship. The engine's just off, you don't have to do anything special."

But Kazuya was already up the stairs and into the brilliant noon day sun. The heated heat and sea spray hit him in one blow, prickling his skin with goose bumps.

He breathed it in anyways.

As expected, Ayako, Lin, and Takigawa had stationed themselves near the masts, where they worked on loosing the off-white sails. Kazuya found Masako where he expected her to be: in the shade beneath the deck, watching the proceedings of the others with impassive, deep eyes.

"Hey, boss! Good to see you up!" called Takigawa. His biceps bulged from the effort of holding on to the ropes, as Ayako didn't look like she wanted to pick up the slack from the other side.

Lin was at the other sail, and Kazuya wasn't surprised to see him already tying the sail into place.

"If you had just gotten a ship a few years older, the sails would have been motorized," Ayako said. "You wouldn't even need stupid sails, everything would be motorized, but no! You had to be a cheap bastard!"

In answer, Kazuya took the ropes from her and nudged her aside. Takigawa gave an audible puff of relief as the workload evened out and the sail clicked into place.

"Ayako, I'd like you to stay on the ship with Yasu. I expect you to be extra charming should any mermen appear."

She gawked at him. "Did he just really say that?"

"Yes," said Kazuya, finding it somehow hard not to smile. "Last time they appeared they nearly killed Lin and I, so I'd say a little feminine charm could never hurt. You never know."

She blinked at him for a bit before sniffing, puffing out her breasts, and flicking her red ponytail back over her shoulder.

"Well, then, I guess I'll be in my quarters."

"Like hell!" cried Takigawa. "We still have work to do! You don't even have any make up or clothes to mess with, so don't go acting like you're getting ready for prom!"

"Who asked you what I was doing, eh? Besides, as you just saw, our fine young captain does better than me anyways."

"Only because you're a lazy priss—"

"There you go, sounding like some little boy with no manners."

By now, all good humor Kazuya had gained from waking up had vanished and he was tired again. "Both of you, shut up. Ayako, check with Yasu about refilling the oxygen tanks. Did anyone finish checking through the scuba gear?"

"Ay," said Takigawa. "Lin saw to that."

Lin himself had already vanished into the control room.

"We should have a small dingy on here," said Kazuya.

"Wait, I though you said we didn't have any safety boats," said Ayako. "I remember that, I was freaked out so much I couldn't sleep!"

Kazuya just gave her his best droll stare. Did it hurt to be that stupid?

"I'd think you would have bothered to actually look if you were that worried. It's hanging up in behind those double doors beneath the control room. You can see it through the windows."

Flustered, she snapped, "What's it doing in there? Shouldn't it be hanging out here? You know, in case the ship sinks?"

By now Takigawa had started to snicker, raising a hand to try and disguise it. Kazuya didn't see what was so funny, but then again, Takigawa was usually finding fun in anything the woman said. Probably had some sort of crush on her, though Kazuya couldn't understand this school boy way of dealing with it; teasing, mocking and the like.

Not that he'd be giving himself any points for how he dealt with Mai.

"That's why it's not a life boat," said Kazuya. "But it will become so once you all help me take it down to where it is hung up. It was in disrepair when I bought the boat and I had plans to paint it, so I hadn't wanted to expose it too much-"

A hiss and thunk against the mast cut him off. A rock dropped to the deck, having missed Kazuya's head by inches.

The three of them stared at it. Wet, black, and speckled with barnacles.

"What the hell," Takigawa said. "Where did—"

THUNK! Another rock hit against the mass. This time, Kazuya had the mind to duck, though it wouldn't have done much good to dodge it, though he did manage to see where it had come from.

As Takigawa and Ayako stared at the second rock, Kazuya ran to the railing and caught himself hard against the bars.

At first, he didn't see him, due to his dark colorings and the waves. But, as he knew what he was looking for, he did eventually spot the man staring up at him from beneath the water. When their eyes met, he came up, and Kazuya couldn't help but think about horror films from the way the young man's black hair stuck to his sickly pale face. The dark eyes that stared back up at him held no warmth, but were as cold and dark as the bottom of the ocean.

His lips moved, and just beneath the waves Kazuya thought he heard a low "Naru?"

His mouth went dry.

"You know Mai?" he asked.

The man nodded. "May I come on? Safer."

Kazuya didn't even hesitate, though he wondered if he would regret it.

"Takigawa! Throw me the lifebuoy!"

They had just started walking over to see what was up and this stopped them in there tracks.

"Oh my god, is there a person there?" said Ayako, hands to her face.

Fortunately, Takigawa got over his initial confusion and, with two long strides, took hold of the white and red ring attached to a rope and tossed it to Kazuya, who simply stepped aside and let it drop over the side.

"Put your arms and head through that!" he called down to the merman.

He did so. By the time he had the ring under his armpits, Takigawa was at his side with his hands on the rope like him, ready to tug him up.

Ayako, on the other hand, was losing fast at the battle to not look enraptured.

"A merman," she breathed. "Oh lordy, he has such a nice face. And those shoulders."

On three, Takigawa and Kazuya pulled hard on the rough old rope. It wasn't till the ring hit the railing and they could reach the pale man did Kazuya realize that his scales were just dark, they were of the most pitch of black and reflected back the sun in thousands of tiny, pinprick white lights.

He flopped onto the deck gracelessly, breathing fast. It only took him a blink of an eye to slip out of the ring and get his tail beneath him, along with some semblance of composure. He wore nothing but a black strap across his chest, which had something of a pouch about as long as a shoebox, those maybe only three inches wide.

"You need to go," he said, his words heavy with a strange clipping, buzzing accent that made it sound like there were v's where there weren't.

"If you know Mai, than you know why I'm here and why I can't just go," said Kazuya curtly. "Why else are you here?"

"That reason. Mai lost princess. Protected. You will die if you not leave."

"Did he just say she's a princess?" Takigawa said.

By now, Lin had noticed the merman from the control room and his footsteps thundered down the aluminum steps.

"How did you know how to find me?" Kazuya asked, urgent. "Did Mai send you? Is she alright? I don't care she's a princess, if she's—"

"She safe," said the merman quickly. "But very concerned for you. You not safe. You will not—can not reach her. Very deep—deep with maitre. Army, all around." He made a circling motion with his arms, those deep water eyes intense beneath broad, heavy eyebrows.

Kazuya went cold, as though he had just been dropped into the ocean.

Lin had taken a position besides Kazuya, where he eyed the merman warily.

Then the last person Kazuya expected asked the question he meant to ask.

"But is she happy?"

Masako, dressed in her patchwork curtain sundress, stepped out from between Takigawa and Ayako.

The merman reacted to her as he did to the rest of them: cold, hard, and matter of fact.

"She will be."

"That wasn't a yes," said Kazuya. "You lot took her by force, you didn't invite her. Does she want to be there or not?"

The merman's attention flickered to Kazuya before he looked away from him, not meeting his eye.

"She…misses some things. She thought her friend dead, so she was sad. But she know you alive, so she will be okay. You must understand, this is best for her. She not human. She is our princess."

"Didn't I already say I didn't care?" growled Kazuya. "Who are you to decide what will make her happy or not? What is good for her? Let her decide that for herself and bring her here."

The pale skin, black scaled merman let loose a harsh bark of laughter.

"I risk life just to give you this message," he said, flashing bone white teeth with what could have been elongated canines. "Bring princess here? I will be imprisoned when I return. You are stupid."

Kazuya had never taken too kindly to anyone calling him stupid. Maybe being a certified genius did that to a guy.

The two weeks of sickening stress played into it as well.

So Kazuya punched him over the head with all his strength.

Ayako shrieked in alarm as the merman toppled to the deck, stunned. Takigawa swore and grabbed for Kazuya's arm.

Lin and Masako didn't even flinch.

"No, you're stupid," said Kazuya with a familiar deadly calm he fell into like an old glove. "To think I'd leave her behind in captivity after just getting her out. They may not be torturing her for her tears, but princess is just as bad as any. Ever give any thought to that?" He yanked his arm from Takigawa's grasp. "Let go of me, you moron."

The merman sat up slowly, though he did not tuck his tail beneath him again. His tail fin stood erect, and for the first time Kazuya noticed the small, finger length horn at the end, which the strangely thin end of his tail held like a dagger.

"I hate you," he hissed, sounding, for the first time, inhuman.

"I don't care. Either help me or get off my ship. I'm not leaving."

Ayako gave a little squeak, and Takigawa jumped.

"Now hold on, boss, I think he means it when he says we'll be killed, and the life of a princess isn't so bad!"

"Then stay. I'll go by myself."

It was Lin's turn to show his surprise, which amounted to a hand on Kazuya's shoulder. Kazuya shook it off, but his assistant/body guard's displeasure was obvious.

"I not let you," said the merman lowly.

"Oh? Why? Because you're afraid I'll take away your princess?"

The deep sea eyes flashed up to him, hard beneath those serious eyebrows. "Because I have seen her when you dead. I will not do that to her."

"Then we are at an impasse. I get the feeling you can offer more than you're letting off anyways. Look, all I want to do is give her the choice. If she wants to stay, I won't make her, but I'd like her to know that I'm still here. I could give her a different life. She's human as long as she's dry."

The merman's gills flared out like thin, red petals along his sides, but his face didn't even twitch.

"Uh, I think we should get a say in this, crew's right—"

Ayako slapped her hand over Takigawa's mouth. "Shut up!"

For once, Kazuya was grateful to her.

For a minute, the black merman was quiet. His scales gleamed their thousand suns back to the sky, and a strand of his hair dried enough to peel loose from his forehead. His fingers slowly lifted to the strap at his belt, where he pressed their pads against the long pouch.

"I hate you," he said at last, and the tendons in his fingers stood up. "But…I will try. If you stay here, I can bring message."

"I'll only wait so long," said Kazuya. He met Masako's eyes over his head and she gave a small nod. "Take my associate with you. Hopefully she'll be of some help. If you're not back by tomorrow with her answer, I'm diving down."

"You will die if you do."

"You've made that perfectly clear, but apparently you don't want that."

"Idiot." He looked Masako up and down, sneering. "What will bringing a human help me?"

"She's not." Kazuya gestured to him with her chin and she stepped behind the merman to take hold of the railing. He couldn't help but feel just a bit satisfied when the merman flinched as she leapt over the edge. He pulled himself in order to view the water as Masako floated up, lavender tail flashing in the sunlight.

The merman looked at her for a long second before turning to Kazuya. "Mai like her?"

Kazuya nodded. "By tomorrow. Please and thank you."

With one last killing glare, the merman heaved himself over the railing and dropped down into the water.

Takigawa spat off Ayako's hand. "Are you crazy? What the hell could we do against a whole city of merpeople? Are you suicidal?"

"You idiot, don't you know how love works?" hissed Ayako. "Of course he is, so _shut up!_ "

"I'd like to think he's a bit smarter than that, at least."

The door to the engine room popped open down the way and Yasu top half popped out. "Oy! What's all the commotion about?"

Kazuya stepped passed Lin without a word. He needed quiet. He needed to be alone.

"Dude, did you miss the drama or what! We had a merman onboard—he's gone now. Can't even see him in the water anymore."

"No freaking way! Why didn't you get me? You're such a jerk!"

"Rather intense situation," said Ayako with her arms folded and nose in the air. "Couldn't really stop in the middle of it to fetch our grease monkey."

"Hey! I'm going to bathe!"

Kazuya went up the steps to the second floor, where the captain's quarters were. His head was starting to throb, and something acidic had started to percolate about his heart. He didn't feel too good.

Lin followed behind him. "Kazuya, that was foolish."

"I am aware of that," he said.

Yasu was still hollering. "Were there any mermaids? Were they topless? Oh please say yes."

"No, you moron, there was just the one, and he wasn't much to look at," said Takigawa.

"Are you kidding me?" cried Ayako. "Did you not see his chest? His arms? And good Lord, those eyes could've looked into your soul!"

"More like turn you into a zombie. Was he raised in a cave? Who gets that pale?"

Kazuya put a hand to his brow. "Can you get them to stop yelling? I have work to do."

"I'm not going to let you dive down there," said Lin.

"And I don't care. Get those morons to shut up and leave me alone, that's an order."

Only once in the darkness of his quarters, alone and with the door locked, did he allow himself to collapse against a wall with his face in his hands.

Because neither Masako or the merman had any real reason to come back, let alone tell him the truth.


	31. She said WHAT!

**all you who got a free copy of the book-NOW TIME TO READ! Without some good reviews, even if I get entered into the contest because I got rid of my 100 copies, I'll get nowhere!**  
 **Lucky for you, Erase Me is fairly short and can be read in a few hours. I can't wait to hear what you think! em(so excited!)**  
 **And as a reward for all your hard work...emanother chapter/em! Thanks so much again for helping me. ^.^ I could have never gotten rid of 80 copies without you.**

Chapter 30

Kazuya hadn't realized he had fallen asleep until Lin shook him awake.

"They're here."

Mouth dry, Kazuya dashed after him to the control room. The sun had set heavy over the sky. Since their ship was anchored, he could hear the crew laughing about something in the mess hall.

They didn't bother closing the door behind them as Lin and Kazuya gathered about an old fashion green radar screen that had the distinct look of being after market, as yachts usually weren't equipped with Navy grade radar systems.

On it, the distinct shape of three ships blipped into view: lime green oblongs, pulsing with each cycle of the sonar.

"You're sure?" asked Kazuya.

In answer, Lin clicked on a nearby laptop, which brought up blurred images on the screen.

"Took pictures with the long lens," he said curtly. "Even then I had to zoom in."

Kazuya squinted at the pixilated ship. On the back, where the name of the ship would be, was a distinct AAA, each A separated by words too blurred to read. But, by the shape, these weren't your ordinary cruisers or yachts. These things were modern, sleek, and a mix of black and white.

"Masako?" asked Kazuya, bringing up more windows of sonar of the surrounding area and what could have passed in the hours since they had anchored at the edge of the trench. Nothing more than fish, and the bigger bleep that signaled the black merman coming and leaving with Masako.

"Tracker is still on. I've circled the general vicinity in which she stopped." Lin brought down the ocean map for the area, which, even shrunk down to such a small vicinity as the Bahamas, still covered the control desk, laptop, and radar screen. On it he had made a small series of circles. "She seems to maneuver around this area."

"Do you think they tracked us or her?"

"It could be either. The yacht's identification number should have hidden it, and I did remove the tracking device I could find from off her."

Naru snarled. "Don't tell me they just guessed."

"They did have your research, and the sightings—"

"Back in Texas! We've been clean since Cuba!" Kazuya looked back to check the clock. Three fifteen. It was still set to Arizona time, however, so it would be about three hours behind, so he had slept most of the day away. "Any sign of Father Brown?"

"None."

Kazuya growled to himself. He should have asked that damn fish instead of gotten caught up in his emotions. John had been out here long enough, and he didn't know if the idiot had thought to bring along provisions. Though, in the back of his mind, Kazuya knew what had happened. This was the Bermuda triangle, after all.

He looked back at the laptop, which glowed through the ocean map.

"We're sitting ducks."

Lin grunted, arms folded and hands fisted against his sides.

Kazuya dug his hands into his hair and started to pace. Inane things, like how much dirt had gathered in the corners over the weeks, popped through the tangle of gears which were his thoughts. He was suppose to be intelligent. He was suppose to be resourceful.

"Damn it, I'm human researcher, not an escape artist!" he snarled. In a fit of frustration he flung his arm across one of the dozen or so cardboard boxes that hid in nooks here and there across the ship—remnants of a trip that had ended before it began.

Several rolls of black gorilla tape bounced across the floor. Along with it was his crudely made mica experiment, which he had left next to the radar.

He stared hard at the pocketed, plastic Styrofoam wafer. Then at the scattered rolls of gorilla tape.

Something clacked against the deck. Kazuya and Lin rushed to the windows just in time to see another rock arc over the railing and spin out across the deck.

"Kazuya!" yelled Lin in warning, but he ignored him and cleared the stairs in two bounds.

Kazuya just about clotheslined himself on the railing just as the kitchen door burst open and the rest of the crew came pouring out.

The black merman waited for him in the waters. Alone.

"She said no," he said. "She stay here. Now go away before you killed."

Kazuya's heart turned to ice.

The black merman turned to dive down.

" _Wait!_ "

He glared over his shoulder at Kazuya, who struggled for the first time in his life to get his brain to ignore his feelings.

"The people who tortured Mai are here," he forced out, pointing across the ocean in the general direction Lin said they were coming from. "You need to help me get on board their ships before they get to your people, we have reason to believe they know exactly how to find them and they'll do the same to them as they did to Mai or worse."

An ugly look twisted the pale face in the water. For some reason, it made Kazuya's stomach go heavy with foreboding.

"Why would I help you?"

By now the crew had reached the other side of the ship and had somehow managed to hear the gist of the exchange, for out of the corner of Kazuya's eye he watched them all gape in shock.

"Didn't you just hear him?" asked Takigawa. "It's your people who are in trouble!"

But the merman just flashed a white, fang smile, which completed the terrifying, sickly pale look reflecting the sirens of old that sung men to their deaths—and laughed.

"I have no reason to believe you," he said, slowly, coldly. "You should worry more about you. No man can best us at sea, and you would already be killed by me if not for Mai."

And with that, he dove down into the waters and vanished into its depths.

Kazuya's heart fluttered beneath the cage of ice the merman's words had created. Something wasn't right. Something was horribly, awfully wrong, and it wasn't because his only plan had just taken a nose dive out of his grip.

"Would you believe him?" said Ayako, scowling at the waters. "How cocky can you get? His entire world is at stake and he just flips you off!" she stopped. "Wait, they found us? Who found us?"

"Man, that smirk of his." Takigawa made a show of shuddering.

Yasu, who had been oddly quiet during the whole exchange, was looking at Kazuya in an uncharacteristically grave manner from where he had crouched next to the railing so he could stick his head between the rungs.

"I know your smart, Boss, but what did you need him for anyways?"

Kazuya turned from the ocean, certain if he stared at it a moment longer he'd be sick, and slid down the railing to land his butt on the deck. "Camouflage. His black coloring would have been excellent for sneaking aboard the ship. I was going to ask him to pull me over in black, where I was planning to board the ship with Yasu and…well, it doesn't matter now. There's no way we could scuba the entire way. We don't have an propeller to carry us that distance and the moment they'd see us…I'm not entirely fond of what will happen if they see us. They're the ones who send Masako who tried to kill all of us. That should tell you enough."

The three crew mates visibly paled. Lin, who had taken up post as grumpy sentinel, simply 'hmmphed' and leaned back against the wall at the foot of the stairs.

Ayako flapped her hands awkwardly. "But your girl will be back before then, right? He at least said he'd go get her, right?"

At Kazuya's silence, the three of them blanched.

"Oh God," she breathed.

"After all this way—"

"Shut up, Yasu!"

"Takigawa, I'm going to need you to lift the anchor," said Naru. "Yasu…"

"Yeah, I'll go get the engines going." He stood and trotted off. Takigawa all but fled.

Ayako lingered, looking uncertain.

"Look, I know it sucks right now," she said carefully. "But it will all be alright, I promise, and even though I've been annoying, I'm here if you need to talk—"

"Ayako?"

She flinched at the harsh clang of his tone.

"Go snap up the sails. There's no reason to keep the engines quiet anymore."

For once, she didn't complain, just nodded and jogged towards the masts.

Leaving Kazuya and Lin standing there in silence and late afternoon sun. Without a word Kazuya stepped past him and back up the stairs, and Lin followed without asking.

Back up in the control room, Kazuya took a moment to gather his bearings before heading towards the controls and looking down at the ocean map. His ever quiet assistant took his place at the helm, checking their coordinates on the GPS.

"I'm leaving her down there with that guy."

Lin's finger hesitated over the buttons of the GPS. Then they lowered back to the helm.

"I'm leaving her down there with those bastards coming her way. I'm just leaving her."

Lin said nothing.

But he didn't have to say anything, for Kazuya snapped. Grabbing the first thing his hands fell on, he flung it, screaming. His mica shield experiment shattered against the wall in a plume of dotted leaflets.

"All this way, and I can't even do a thing! I'm God damn _powerless!_ "

A fragile telescope clanged against the wall, the lens shattering.

And then his will gave out and he crumpled to the floor like a puppet whose strings had suddenly been cut.

Lin, who had stood there quietly without moving a finger, finally moved to kneel down besides his broken employer.

"I am sorry," he said softly. "I should have done better."

Kazuya almost snorted. What was there to say? There was nothing any of them could have done. He had just wasted his and his crew's time—risked their very lives—without even planning ahead of just how he planned on rescuing Mai should she be at the bottom of the ocean other than making a deal with a shifty mermaid. He had hoped that she might have been free to swim to the surface, but even if she hadn't have turned out to be a princess, how foolish could he have been? To think she'd want to be with him rather than her own kind? He, who had kept her in a God damn tank, for Pete's sake! Who had gotten her into that whole stupid mess with the triple A in the first place! Him! Arrogant, cold, cruel, heartless, smart-ass, unempathetic him?!

A knock came to the control room door. Before either of them could respond, Yasu stepped in. It was a good thing he had taken a shower earlier, as the control room was small and week old body odor was just what Kazuya need to complete his pathetic picture.

"I've talked to the others," Yasu said, once more unorthodoxically serious. "If you want to try…to try and save her, somehow from those ships, we're with you."

Kazuya lifted his head to stare at him. He wasn't sure he had heard right. Was it really the frumpy, perverted air-head hippy that had just…

Lin stood up, reminding Kazuya of the compromising position in which Yasu had just found him in. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Forget it," he said, letting his head swing back to where it had hung. "I can't risk your lives when I don't even have an idea of how to do that. Besides, she's a princess. She probably has a whole army to protect her."

"This isn't about her, boss. It's about you." Yasu heaved a loud sigh. "Look, we've watched you run yourself till you were literally sick just to find her. And even though you're a complete grouch and a pain in the ass to talk to, no guy who loves a girl that much can be that bad. We see more than you think, and what we see we want to help. So…so even if you just want to, I don't know, hang around to make sure, or you come up with anything else, we're all in. Just…just fyi…"

A lull fell into the cabin. Yasu shifted from foot to foot searching for anything else to say. Then he straightened.

"Oh, yeah, one more thing. Do you know if Masako is coming back? I mean, why did you send her in the first place?"

Kazuya wagged his head. "It was part of the deal we made when I let her out of that tank. To find me Mai in return for..." He fisted a hand into his hair. "I'm an idiot."

"The best of us are sometimes, brother."

Kazuya hefted a sigh and pushed himself onto his knees. "We might as well put this…merfolk whatever between us and the Tripple A. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky and figure out a way to warn them or find a way to help. And besides that," An old, familiar smirk jerked at his mouth. "I got the existence of merfolk to prove."

"I could always disguise myself as a merman and try to lure up some babes." Yasu winked and struck a pose.

And to both of their surprise, Kazuya actually smiled.

"That's actually not too bad of an idea. Wouldn't hurt to try. The worst we'd get is a good laugh."

Yasu softened and returned Kazuya's smile. "What do you know, you really are a cold bastard."

"Yeah, and you're lazy. Get back to work."

"Aye aye, Cap't."


	32. Into the Cold Deep

**TO ALL YOU WHO GOT A FREE COPY OF 'ERASE ME'** **It's time to read and review! Now that I've managed to get rid of all 100 free copies, I can now be evaluated in the finals of the contest! The winner is decided based on the satisfaction of their readership, so that means review time! You guys got until August 28th!**

 **And as thanks for all your tremendous help (I'd get nowhere without you), here's a nice long, fat, juicy chapter! I'll post up the next one either on Thursday or when Erase Me has managed to get up to 50 of 100 reviews. ^.^ As a treat. Thanks again!**

Chapter 31

Mai woke up in her bed. No one waited in her room to pounce on her. No guards stood outside her seaweed carpet door. No strange black smudges on her reflection in the mirror. The top she had worn out with Zen had been her pajama top, made mostly of dark seaweed and that soft, flowy sheer material interwoven for softness sake. It had been the darkest thing she owned, and even it looked normal and clean in the mirror.

But the achy hollow beneath her rib cage and the tender spot on her neck told her it hadn't been a dream.

She drifted out in a daze. The obsidian mirror floors winked her own copper scales back at her, and the jellyfish glow made her look pale. But, then, she always looked pale now a days. Everyone in the deep was pale.

But the sun was so close.

The queen waited for her in the kitchen. She looked up from a seaweed scroll she was reading and frowned.

Mai tensed.

"You're up late." Her grandmother looked back down and took a sip out of whatever had been put into her coconut. "Did you and Zen get into a fight? I haven't seen him around yet."

Mai clenched her hands behind her. "I guess you could say that."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

So the queen hadn't noticed? "Not really."

"I understand. Well, come eat. We have a long day ahead of us."

Mai moved forward, trying her best not to look suspicious. She had always been a crappy liar. Even as she sat down at the table—tucking her tail beneath it so she wouldn't drift away—she had to stop herself from hugging her middle and bending forward from the pain.

Naru had been so close.

A chuckle of bubbles streamed up as her grandmother put down the scroll once more.

"Little one, you have such shadows under eyes. Still not sleeping well?"

Mai shook her head. "Sorry."

"Nothing to apologize for. You have a hard adjustment. I just wish I could figure out a better way to help you…" she bit her bottom lip and tapped her elbow before smiling. "I know. How about we visit Lucris? You seem to like him, and your cousins brightened you up before. We could go out together."

A new feeling crackled through her: guilt. But Mai managed a smile. "Actually, that sounds great."

The older woman cocked her head to the side to peer at her. "Was the fight that bad?"

Mai nodded and looked down.

"Are you sure it's nothing…serious?"

Mai nodded again. "Yeah, it's just…it's nothing to bad. I just feel bad about it, that's all. I don't want to talk about it right now. Maybe later."

And the queen took it. She nodded, her gaze so soft. "I understand. Whatever you need you let me know, okay?"

 _A strawberry milkshake._ But, of course, Mai didn't say that out loud.

She did her best to swallow as much of the food that cook put in front of her, but for the first time the food tasted nauseatingly too fishy. All of it had that tang of seafood, and by the end she feared her gut would reject it. Concerned, her grandmother asked if she would allow a physician to look at her, and Mai felt so guilty that she agreed to have one look at her—after she had a chance to run to the nearest 'restroom' and hurl.

Bathrooms under sea were an interesting business. Of course merfolk had some sense of privacy, since whenever you went you could see it in the water just as good as on land, and the disgusting of it remained the same. But, underwater, things got a little…interesting.

Thus, underwater toilets used a system of high and low pressures to suck away unwanted wastes beneath the castle, where high pressures were maintained using a cycle of heating from the vents. In short, cold, heavy water went down, and where more water was, the denser the water. If the bathrooms were kept cool, and the water beneath kept hot and light, it would create a sucking effect.

Still none too pleasant to have your breakfast sucked out of you.

The physician was a kind, older gentleman with blond hair and blond lashes that made her stomach clench all over again. Right when she thought she was okay, she had to run to hurl once more, images of unblinking eyes crushing against the hollow pain in her gut.

Her grandmother was more than a little concerned, although the doctor just looked sympathetic.

That is, until Mai realized she couldn't breathe. Her heart picked up and slowed sporadically and her vision blurred. The taste of bile in her throat took her back to the too-clear tanks, where metal arms injected vials of burning something into her bloodstream and lightning snapped her muscles till they tore and her eyes ceased to work.

It came upon her like a tidal wave. The dead boy. Naru. Zen. Torture, zapping, crying opals onto the ground—though, this time, no matter how hard she cried, no opals fell out. She collapsed into the doctors arms and shook like a reed in the wind.

 _I'm dying_ , she thought. _I must be dying. Something's wrong._

Mom. She wanted her mom. She _needed_ her mom so badly she knew her organs must burst with blood for the want. She wanted heat, she wanted summer car rides, she wanted the Colorado river and her mom singing David Bowie in the sun.

She wanted Naru.

The physician took her to her bed and took her pulse, doing his best to hold her still. The queen hovered, hands in her hair, looking, for the first time since Mai had met her, uncomposed and unkempt.

"Mai? Mai, what's wrong? What's happening? Oh, my Mai! What did he do? Is this Zen's fault? Did he do something?"

At the growing pitch of her voice alarmed her, Mai forced herself to shake her head, then wept. She wanted Zen. She wanted Zen too.

The doctor said something to the queen, then handed Mai's cringing form into her arms. Then he was off.

"Breathe, Mai. Everything is just fine, I heard you. We'll deal with Zen later."

Mai hadn't been aware that she had been talking.

Somehow, though dark stars popped into her vision, she didn't suffocate. She could almost fool herself that she might just live through this until the doctor returned with his blond hair and reminded her all over again. She had never noticed how thin her grandmother's arms were until they had braced themselves over her chest to hold her arms in place.

"It's just a panic attack," said her grandmother in a tone that said she was telling herself that as much as Mai. "You're not going to die, you just need to breathe."

Then the doctor told her to open her mouth and stabbed her tongue with something she couldn't see.

The taste of blood frightened her, if possible, more, but strangely her shaking began to calm. Her limbs filled up with sand and something reached in and forcibly smothered the raw, screaming part of her.

And she could finally breathe.

Gently, and now shaking more than her, the queen settled Mai back in her bed, never once ceasing her calming hushing sounds. Mai's braids had come undone through the episode and her grandmother ran her fingers through her hair in slow, soothing motions.

The room spun lethargically. Mai would blink and its cycle would start over.

The doctor and the queen talked over her, though the queen's silver eyes never left her. Images drifted across her mind like bubbles, having never left.

The blond priest…so heavy, pulling her down…Naru alive…Zen's tail tight about her own, his face twisted with regret, with pain…but Naru…Naru was up there.

Mai started to cry.

"I don't know where he is."

The queen cut the doctor off with a hand. "Where who is?"

But Mai just shook her head and cried. Her eyes ached. Zen knew how to fix that. He'd shown her. Rubbed her eyes—how?

On seeing Mai rubbing her eyes in vain, the queen gently pushed them down and pressed the pad of her fingers to the corner of her eyes, below her eyebrows. Mai felt the flakes of pearl down her cheeks like butterfly wings.

"Get some rest, dear little one," she murmured. "Just rest. Everything is okay."

Mai woke up to a room without the queen or the doctor. She didn't know how long she had slept, for the light out her window was much the same, though it was always hard to tell underwater. The heater vent rumbled from the corner of her room.

At first she didn't know what had woken her up, as she was just as heavy as before. But then the shadow next to her bed moved and the pale, sad face of Zen came into her view.

"Princess," he covered his face with his hand. "Oh, princess."

Mai just stared up at him. It wasn't till he folded in on himself at her bedside that she found the strength to sit up. Her head tried to fly off without her, but she managed to keep it between her shoulders.

"It's nothing," she said. "Just a panic attack. You shouldn't be in my room."

Zen didn't answer, his head in his hands. She tried lifting her hand to comfort him, but her heavy, sedated body tipped, losing balance in the precarious space which was underwater.

She as much as bumped into his shoulder as he did catch her. At finding their faces close enough to count one another's lashes, he pulled back and resettled her on the bed.

"I not have to ask," he said, not meeting her eye. "You want him. You want Naru. And land."

Mai stared at him, unable to comprehend what he said. Whatever the doctor had given her was taking its sweet time in leaving.

Thus, unable to say anything, she dropped her head onto his shoulder and almost dozed off.

But he gently pushed her back. "This can not wait. Do you want to see him?"

"I was going to ask…" she mumbled. Darkness creeped in her vision again.

Zen gave a puff of bubbles in frustration. "This is…wait…" he fiddled at his belt around his chest and pulled out the bone knife. Before she could figure out what he meant to do with it, he abruptly pricked her arm with it.

"Youch!" The sudden pain sent a spike of energy through her. "What was that for?"

"Help stave off affects. Medicine used as poison once. Sister told me." He sheathed the bone knife while gently pressing his thumb on the spot on her arm to stop the bleeding. "Did you hear me?"

She opened her mouth, her thoughts tripping over one another to catch up. She steadied herself on the bed and sighed."Even if I could go to him…I'm more or less trapped down here."

Zen's dark eyes were sober. "No. Not trapped. I…I saw him. Naru."

Whatever lethargic part of her remained sedated by the drug prickled. She put a hand to her head as it spun from the effort.

"You saw—you went and saw—is he okay? Is he safe? Did you warn him?"

"Yes yes. He's leaving now—has other lives on ship to care for."

"He…" oh why did her heart have to skip a beat like that, why?

Zen must not have liked what he saw on her face, for his expression, if possible, darkened even farther. "If we hurry…we maybe catch up."

Now Mai really stared at him. "Are you sure you talked to Naru?"

This caught him off guard. "Yes?"

She couldn't understand what she was feeling. It was like hope, but too painful and sad. What had she expected him to do? To wait for her? She had wanted to warn him in the first place. She should thank Zen for risking himself to go and warn him.

And what chance had they to catch up with a yacht?

Her grandmother's frightened face and fly away hair came to her mind. Her skin still remembered the soft press of the old queen's hands as she held her close.

She bowed her head. "I shouldn't…"

His eyebrows went high. "You want to stay?"

"I—" Oh. _Oh._

Zen wrapped his hand about her wrist. He pulled it towards him, bringing her along with it.

"Stay," he said, low as the rumble of the heating vent. "Stay here with your family. Stay here with your kind…stay here with me."

She didn't know how she let it happen, but by the time he said that she was off her bed and on the floor with him. He draped her across his lap and the end of his tail bent up to twist about hers. The tighter it wound, the closer she was pressed to him till the heat of his chest pressed up against hers—

And he kissed her.

His kisses were nothing like Naru's, from what little she could remember of him. They were cooled with water and smoother than silk upon silk. He didn't taste of fish, but of sand and wind. Where before when he had wrapped his tail about her, it had been to simply keep her on the ocean floor and had been lax and soft. Now it constricted till she could feel the lone horn of his tail burying itself within her scales to the point of pain.

And yet, though his kiss tasted cool, the pain somehow alighted a heat within her that responded. Her response was bewildered, curious, and desperate for comfort, but a response nonetheless.

That had been the wrong thing to do.

The hidden strength Mai had guessed at for some time came out in force as Zen twisted about and pinned her to the floor, grappling at stones that held her bed to keep them in place. A heavy pressure like the bottom of a glass pressed against her hips and his kisses turned ravenous.

Alarmed she tried to move back, but they were so tightly entwined it only served to jar the horn that'd hooked above her fins and held her in place. She let out a yelp of pain.

Zen jerked back, just as surprised as her.

"I…" he looked down at her—hard to do with how closely they pressed to each other. "I…"

Mai tried to find her hands to cover her face, a sudden sense of vulnerability overwhelming her. She hadn't meant for that to happen—she hadn't meant—what would Naru think? What would she tell Naru?

"I don't like this," she whimpered. "This is—please get off. I didn't mean that, I didn't—Zen."

He responded instantly, tugging out his horn, untwining from her as quickly as a dropped slinky, and pushed away from her. In a breath he had covered the space of her bedroom to hide himself in the farthest corner of her bedroom.

"No look!" he said, his voice oddly high. "Wait."

Mai did her best to compose herself, though it was hard not to allow herself to fall back into the shaking and wailing of before. Luckily, enough of the sedative remained in her system to give her some base for calm as she raised herself on the bed and pull up the bleeding end of her tail, though she kept her eyes away from him.

But she somehow couldn't calm herself.

"Let's go," said Zen quietly, but firmly. "It would not hurt to look. We leave for a day and come back, get in a little trouble, no harm done."

"But-but you said you could get in some serious trouble if you were caught with me—and being gone with me for a day—"

"Then mate with me."

A jolt ran through her body and she almost squeaked with surprised as she stared at him. He was looking at her, his eyes dark and serious.

"If we do not find your Naru, mate with me. Then we both be safe." He blinked and flinched his head away from her. "But you don't have to. I—I can handle whatever happens. The trouble. I'll be okay."

Mai shook her head and put her hands to her eyes. "You're track record with romance so far is as bad as his, you know. What were you trying to do back there, rape me?"

By the sound of the violent whoosh of water he had moved dramatically. "No! No no no!" He spluttered some vile sounding words in mermish before attempting a semblance of English. "I do—did no realize—did not realize it would—I had not meant—I had never touched a woman before—" he gave up to more cursings in mermish that fell away into silence.

She lowered her hands and stared at them, wondering how they remained smooth and unwrinkled despite having lived weeks underwater.

Mai bit her lip. Slowly, she closed her hands.

"Why didn't you just let me go when we were out of here?"

"I not trust him—not trust you—did not think he had such affect on you. It was a…a new decision to go warn him after I brought you back. I have…repented."

Despite his pauses and usual stuttering, he said the words as though expecting her to ask.

But it was only a day. And though she didn't want to get him in trouble, she would never be able to live with the fact that she hadn't at least tried to see Naru one last time when she had been able to. And if Zen was going to be willing without her having to persuade him…

She uncurled and drifted up into the water. "Alright. Let's go."

He didn't lead her out of the window as he had before. Rather, he checked the hallway, vanished for a minute, and then came back to take her hand. Mai had to slap a hand to her mouth when she saw the floating forms of two guards besides her door.

"Just sleep," he whispered.

She didn't know what she should be so surprised. Hadn't he done the same thing to her?

"Just how much did your sister teach you?" she asked.

He shushed her and urged her up to the ceiling, where the vent lines ran. Silently, they slid through the water, urged on by occasional puffs of warm water.

When a guard walked about the corner, Mai and him barely had the time to register one another before Zen was upon him, tail whipped about him to hold him in place and a chop to the curve of his neck.

The guard went limp with a burst of bubbles and floated to the ceiling.

And Zen was pulling her along the vents once more.

Before she knew it she was in a part of the palace she had never seen before. The rock hallways became unpolished and grey, and holes pock marked here and there, along with pipes and levers. The holes varied in sizes, though none were smaller than a basketball, and the largest could have fit two men. No jellyfish orbs adorned here, only the wan, blue-green glow of a few crystals.

Zen looked back to flash her a grim smile. "My work."

Even as she looked she could see some of the tools Zen usually wore about him settled into corners on the floor. Just as she noticed them, she realized the hallway had become tube shaped, just like many of the holes.

He pulled her up to one of the larger holes. Cool water drifted out from it.

"Will be little tight, but do not be scared. I came back through here. Hold to my tail."

He lifted his fins to her as he reached for the edge of the pipe.

Mai looked into the tunnel. Nothing but pitch black, and it barely looked large enough to allow Zen's broad shoulders entrance.

She carefully wrapped her hands just above his fins. His lone horn poked through her fingers.

Zen took hold of the walls of the tunnel and pulled them forward.

Within moments, Mai's world became pitch blackness and the frequent brushes of rough stone. Zen moved in near silence, so Mai followed his lead, though inwardly she prayed Zen knew what he was doing. Should the pipe suddenly fill with boiling water…

It was getting hard to breathe. Zen couldn't use his tail in the small space, and he kept it still so as to not beat her hands against the rough walls.

"Zen…" she gasped.

"Just a little farther," he murmured.

The water started to get colder. Mai took another gulp, but somehow, the water tasted flat. Her head started to spin. For the first time since becoming a mermaid, Mai started to wonder if she could drown.

Zen must have heard her frantic gulps, for his tail flinched, as though to paddle, and she heard his arms scuffle faster. The darkness pressed hard on her eyes.

Then, with one finally burst of speed, they broke into open, gray, cold water, and oxygen burst into her brain like stars. Zen's tail kicked from her grasp, and in the next breath he had a hand on one of her arms to hold her in place, careful to keep from touching her sides where the pink flesh of her gills fluttered through the spaces allowed by her top.

"Breathe," he said.

"I'm okay," she said breathlessly. "Where's Naru? You know which direction he went in, right?"

Zen tapped his ear. "I good tracker, no fear. Come."

He let her go and took stock of his surroundings before they set off. The coral here grew downwards, occasionally bursting into forests of seaweed near the bottom. As the bottom of the ocean slopped farther away, and the coral thinned, Zen led them upwards, closer to the brighter, blue waters above them.

Then, abruptly, he stopped, a hand to the dagger sheath that had replaced his tool straps. Before she could ask what it was, he grabbed her wrist and started pulling her deeper.

"A bit too late for that!" someone shouted.


	33. Because Love Doesn't Go Unnoticed

**I'm posting this early, not because I got 50 reviews out of the 100 people who accepted a free copy of Erase Me, but because a wonderful user named Sukary-chan made me a gorgeous piece of fan art and I realized my offer to update an early chapter for every piece of fan art I get was still in effect. Also, I was just so grateful and happy for such a kind reminder of why I do this when I'm so scared of this competition that I couldn't sit aside and do nothing. I had to show my gratitude somehow.**

 **Thank you all again for reading. ^.^ This isn't the end of the story, but we're getting close. Please continue to share with me what you think and thank you so much for the wonderful reviews you have given already. It really is a delight to me.**

 **With love from your humble author**

Chapter 32

Mai froze at the woman's voice. Still, she was being pulled down. The water was getting colder. Not too far ahead she could see a shelf, where the land dropped and the ocean went on and on.

An old fear tickled back into her gut. The deep. The never ending, sightless deep of the ocean.

"If you meant to take her to Kazuya, you're going the wrong way."

Mai froze. "How does she know Naru?"

"Just keep going," he said. The grip around her wrist started to hurt.

The shelf came closer. She could see the sea floor now, rocky, cold, and barren. Her body shivered, and her skin recoiled from the cold.

Something shot past her ear and thunked into Zen's shoulder. Dark red blood spewed out, momentarily hiding the dark black needle of…something. He reached back and pulled out a thin, narrow piece of metal with bared teeth.

The sight of it made Zen's face snap close and dark.

"Keep swimming down," he pushed her in front of him .

"Mai, don't listen to him!"

Mai, who stalled before the sinking mountainside of seafloor, cold and frightened, looked back.

A mermaid swam towards them. Through the brightness of the distant surface Mai thought she could see purple.

But, just as she turned back to the deep, Zen's hand pushing her down as he drew forth his knife, a new thought occurred to her.

How did she know Zen was taking her to Naru? If…if he really did want to mate with her—mate with the only princess to his kingdom—why would he take her to Naru? How did she know he had seen Naru at all?

Dread and doubt sunk into her like the chill of the deep waters.

Because how did that mermaid know Naru? Why would Zen try to flee her?

Mai turned about just in time to see the black arrow form of Zen collide with the mermaid twenty meters above her head. Memories of the blond boy he had killed floated to her mind and she cried out, pushing herself up.

"Wait! Zen!"

The purple mermaid, however, slid out of his grasp like a bar of soap. She couldn't see the thin bone blade of his dagger in the water, but the closer she drew, the more she could see the fluid, bullet like strokes of his body as he went after the mermaid.

A sharp, short cry of laughter broke across the water. "Oh, poor thing. You think because I grew up human I don't know how to fight in the water?"

Zen drew back just as Mai drew up from beneath.

"Leave and I not kill you," he snapped, leveling his blade arm to his ear. "Mai, I said get down!"

"Your English is atrocious," said the mermaid.

Mai reached for Zen's arm, to which he hissed and jerked it away.

" _Get down_!"

"He doesn't want you to hear me," said the mermaid, glancing at Mai, a charming smile on her petite lips. "Don't you think you should, then?"

Zen whipped forward, a blur of grey-white skin and black scales.

In a knee-jerk reaction, Mai screeched.

Both the purple mermaid and Zen cringed, but only Zen cried out in pain and locked up in a ball.

Mai paddled to shorten the distance between her and the mermaid.

"How do you know Na—Kazuya?"

"I'm helping him find you," she said shortly. "Also, the triple A is closing in on your kingdom. Do you know that guy your with is not only leading you away from Kazuya, but also from that as well? Dear oh dear, it doesn't look well."

"Don't listen!" moaned the pained voice below.

Mai took a closer look at the mermaid. All she wore was a piece of fabric wrapped tightly about her chest and tied at her belly. Stuck between the weave, like pins, were more of the narrow, thin metal darts, except not one was as straight as the other. They looked homemade. The young woman herself was a bit smaller than Mai, with fine Asian features and black hair that had been cropped even shorter than Mai's.

"They're coming—how did they find the city?" gasped Mai, but shook herself and drew back, father from both of them. "How can I even believe you?"

The mermaid rolled her eyes. "Why on earth would I want to keep you away from your know-it-all asshole? I tried to kill him. I actually work for triple A, but he caught me and worked a deal with me that if I helped him find you, he'd let me keep my second tracking device, which, in turn, led my employers to your city. Now, if you'll come with me—"

But Mai had backed away even further. She could no longer see Zen against the black of the deep water beneath her. She couldn't quite grasp it—a mermaid? Working for triple A?

The memories came back to her like knives: the tank, the shock treatment, the vomit.

"You're just going to take me back to them!" she shrieked.

The mermaid didn't look amused. "I just handed over to them a whole city, why the hell would I paddle all the way over there just to give them one stinking mermaid? Look, if you want to be dragged away to the unknown by that guy, go for it. I just figured I'd let you know, on a fish girl to fish girl basis."

Mai clutched at her face. "My grandmother—the people—"

"Will probably be fine," said the girl in exasperation as she tugged out another dart from her chest wrap. "By the way, he's coming up from behind you."

Mai blinked and Zen's hands were on her wrists again, tugging her back down.

"Get away—get away!" he panted.

Mai squirmed, but he didn't let go. His mass was pulling her down!

"Zen, what's going on?" she tried a different approach. "If triple A is coming, we have to go back! We have to warn them!"

"They'll be fine—"

"Not they won't!" she took another deep breath—

And Zen slapped a hand over her mouth. His hands left her wrists to snake around her chest and his arms went tight about her—too tight. Her gills couldn't open.

Mai opened her mouth wide desperately, but she couldn't—couldn't breathe.

Another black dark zipped past, missing them by inches.

"If you want me to help, just say so!" cried the mermaid from above.

"Help!" but her voice came out weak. She hammered against his arms, but her arms went slack. Everything was getting darker.

Zen shouted and suddenly she could breathe again.

Mai shot up towards the light, never more desperate for it than she was now. She zoomed past the purple mermaid, not caring to see if she followed or not.

She just wanted sun. She wanted away from the deep, away from it all, back to the sands, back to the shores—

With a sensation of being shot out of a cannon, Mai erupted from the water and into the air. Orange sky filled her view, water-logged lungs gasped for air, and warmth pressed about her like cotton.

And gravity brought her back down. Before the bubbles cleared she could see the flashing of violet scales below as the mermaid caught up.

Zen was nowhere to be seen.

"Come on, before I change my mind," she said.

Mai recoiled from her, though the girl made no move to even touch her. "What did you—how—who are you?"

"Masako. Masako Hara. Now do you want to see your stupid Kazuya or not? I've been swimming all day and I'm tired, and I've got even more swimming to do before the night is over. God, I hate the ocean. Hopefully we find him before my boss does."

She turned and started swimming, tone irritated. She didn't even bother to look back to make sure she was following, and, somehow, that did the trick for Mai. After glancing back down below for a sight of Zen, she sped up.

"You didn't kill him, did you?"

Masako snorted. "Nah. The loser swam off the moment he realized he was busted."

Mai glanced back and below at the deep and shivered. Her eyes had started to hurt and something awful broke within her. But she'd deal with that later.

"So Na—Kazuya's still nearby?"

"Should be," she said. "I saw his boat about an hour ago. Not where I left him, but not far either."

Mai stared at the lines of the girl's tailfins for a moment, as though order would be brought back by something she found there. Her fins were a lot like a merman's: stiff, utilitarian, like a swordfish or dolphin.

"We…" no, she had to be firm she couldn't dawdle. What had happened to all her strength? "Can you take me back to the city instead? I have to warn the queen—"

"To what, flee?" Masako's dried tone irked Mai. "Look, those merfolk need to come back to reality. If they're going to survive as a species they need to learn to deal with humans rather than just ignoring them."

"How can you talk like that? Don't you have any idea what they—didn't triple A force you to make opals? What if they kill them?"

She snorted again. "Kill them? Just how powerful do you think they are?"

Mai flushed. "The city is at the bottom of a chasm—a huge…canyon hole thing, if they fire even one torpedo—"

"I already know what the city looks like. How do you think I knew about you? Look, they aren't stupid. They don't want to kill anyone, they want money. They want a for sure supply to mermaids, and they know that a hundred in a boat against a how many thousands down there is an idiotic idea. They fire their torpedos, the merfolk sink them, everyone dies. But that's just the kind of stand down they want. They'll barter with them, you can count on that. Risk death or spilling their secret to the rest of the human world, or lend them a few girls once a year. The girls could even come back, so no one has to be stuck in that stupid bunker of theirs." Masako glanced back at her. "I hear one of those girls is pregnant. If they have more volunteers, they could let her go. Even let her come live down here."

Mai felt her heart skip a beat. Amanda. How could she have forgotten about Amanda?

Masako went on."It sounds harsh, but that's how life is. You got to make sacrifices, find a way, to be free. And think of it this way: once your folk have something to offer people, the safer they'll be. No one is going to go blow up anyone when they hold the means of billions of dollars. Honestly, am I the only one who thinks anymore?"

Mai tried to feel horror—something—something she knew she should, but she couldn't any more. The shock of Zen's betrayal and the buzz of Naru's possible proximity were canceling each other out till she just felt numb. What Masako was saying made sense—horrible sense.

"But those girls will be tortured…" she tried to say.

"And compensated," said Masako wearily. "And with volunteers on hand, girls can go to where they can safely mate with humans, produce more females, and come back safely, with whatever they ask for on hand. No one has to be forced to be there. Everyone wins."

Mai still shook her head. "What they're doing is wrong—"

"And what can you do about it?" Masako stopped abruptly to give her a hard stare. "Wake up, little princess. This is the real world, and the real world is greedy and hard. Maybe you could do something about triple A—but right now you're lost, alone, and one mermaid. They're an entire organization funded by nations—not just one nation, many, and they're already zoned in on your city. Even if you warned them in time to run away, what good will that do? They'll run away, find some deeper, colder part of the ocean and hide, and continue to dwindle—and yes, I know about the multiple husbands thing and how many males they produce. They're a dying race. They need humans. In what better situation could they work out coexisting with humans, huh?"

They stared hard into each other's eyes until Mai finally dropped her own.

"I shouldn't have left…" she murmured.

"And done what? Sit around with the rest of them when they sail over and drop their subs?" Masako sighed and turned around. "Look, all you got to worry about right now is what you can control. Like seeing the idiot who trusted the one who tried to kill him in order to find the girl he loved. There will always be something in the world that's evil, but sometimes the only thing you can do is what you can in your sphere of influence." She started forward again. "I know I've had to."

Once more, Mai hesitated before following after her. For some reason, she began to feel an echo of the feeling she had felt the first time she had been dropped in the bay back at the triple A bunker. It was the first thing that had moved across her heart when she had opened her eyes and seen the other mermaids captive in there with her. A comadaree that made the stranger she had met mere moments ago feel like a sister.

Heartened, numb, and more exhausted than ever, Mai pushed herself just a few more feet so she could swim alongside her. Just once, when she glanced over, she thought she saw the other girl smile softly.


	34. The Ice Man Laughs for Joy

**HELP! 'Erase Me' is losing. . If you got one of the free copies, please leave a review. If you're having a hard time seeing the review button, it's probably because of an ad blocker on your browser.**

 **But it's only at %10...*wails***

 ***sigh* either way, here is your long awaited chapter, my friends. :) The next will come in a week, unless something entices** **me to do otherwise.**

Chapter 33

"This whole trip is proving to be a huge disappointment."

Yasu stood beside him at the prow of his ship, hanging over the railing like a limp rag doll, his lower lip jutted out in a pout.

At Kazuya's raised eyebrow, he let out a puff of air that disturbed the fringe of his bangs.

"Not because of that, that's obvious," he said. "I mean, come on, we're suppose to have the feds after us and whatever secret death organization you stole your girl from, and how many gun fights? How many sneaking around or super boat races or—nothing! I signed up for a James Bond sequel with hot babes and everything, and what do I get?" he scratched his nose and peeled off a bit of skin from an old sunburn and hung it over the water. "That."

Kazuya rolled his eyes. "You missed that episode."

"Wait, that actually happened to you?"

"Well, there was definitely more, uh, 'hot babes' and gun fights before I lost Mai at sea, that's for sure."

Yasu straightened, coming back from rag doll to human being once more. "Dude, please tell. I swear I won't, uh, make any inappropriate comments."

Kazuya almost shot him down, content to sink down into his brooding as he watched the waves drift past the ship, but something had happened to the discomfort he usually felt around Yasu. Perhaps it was the blatant, open support he had shown, or perhaps it was waking up to find Yasu asleep on the floor besides him after working with the others to cool him off in a tub. Stupid, woman crazy or not, he wasn't an undependable guy.

The memory of a starlit night tickled at the back of his mind, when Yasu had told him he was afraid there was no God.

And so he told him. At first the words came out like pushing rocks through a rubber tube, but the more that came through, the easier it came. Yasu gasped and 'what the hell' in all the right places, as though it were rehearsed, though Kazuya realized later it was because the kid was more adept at listening that he was. Really listening to another person, not just absorbing what they said like data as Kazuya was use to.

It was the most Kazuya had spoken since…since he'd met Mai.

Behind them, on the other side of the boat, Takigawa fished in the steel colored water. Masako lounged in the shade of the lower deck, occasionally sitting up to check the crab net she had thrown overboard. The current occasionally tugged at their boat against its anchor, but otherwise didn't jostle it too much.

An orange and yellow sunset painted itself against the water-blue sky and dabbed the caps of waves with gold.

He was just getting into the details of how Mai and him escaped when what had to be two heads popped up from the water, dark against the backlight of the setting sun.

At Kazuya's abrupt halt mid-sentence, Yasu looked out at the ocean as well and squinted.

"Is that what I think it is?" he said softly.

Kazuya didn't say anything. He didn't move. Perhaps they were merfolk, sure, but what reason had he to believe that one of them might be Mai?

The heads came closer. He thought he could make out light, brownish hair on one of them.

Then, the one word that would have stopped his heart, made it to his ears.

"Naru!"

Reflexivly, her name tumbled from his lips, and Yasu twitched towards him before running for the lifebuoy, hollering to the others.

"It's her! Guys, it's her!"

Kazuya was hardly aware of Takigawa and Ayako dropping everything and rushing to his side, or when Yasu flung the white ring and rope over the side.

Because he could see her. He could make out the copper scales in the water, the red-brown hair sticking to her round cheeks, and his hands ached from the effort of stopping himself from diving over the edge. Some old part of his mind cried out for control, overwhelmed by such emotional upheaval, but he found, for once, that he didn't care.

Because there was his Mai.

Masako, the last one he expected to keep to their word, helped Mai into the life buoy, as the girl's hands had suddenly become too shaky to be reliable.

"Pull!" hollered Yasu, and the three of them pulled on the rope. Mai was lifted out of the water, tail and all, and her fins dripped down like layers of wet skirt.

Kazuya had to unstuck himself from the railing to reach where they pulled her over. He reached for her wet arms, desperate to be the first one to touch her. The moment the life bouy thumped just at the foot of the railing, Mai reached out to meet his hands, and he had her. He had her hands in his own, and he couldn't believe how small and delicate they felt.

Carefully, trembling, and barely aware that he had started to laugh with joy, he lifted her up and over the railing and into his arms. At the feel of her own arms wrapping tightly about his neck his knees went weak and he collapsed against the deck, holding her as close as physically possible.

She smelled of seaweed and brine. She was wet and shivered in his grasp. But she was here. She was real. She was whole.

The gaping maw and his chest sealed up as though it had never existed, and the chronic pain vanished.

Seemingly from a different world now, Yasu's voice came to Kazuya's ears telling Masako to grab on to the life buoy, but her strong reply said she couldn't. She had business to attend to at her employer's ship, aka, informing them of the situation so they wouldn't blow up Kazuya's yacht.

Mai's hands twitched and he reluctantly allowed her to pull away enough to see her face. Her warm, chocolate brown eyes melted something within him that he hadn't realized had frozen.

"You should go, we can't let them find you," she said.

"Them?" he asked, noticing a blue tinge to her lips he didn't like at all. They were awfully close to the trench and away from tropical temperature waters, after all.

"The merfolk—and triple A. They'll—they're—" her voice broke and she swallowed hard. The hands against his neck, cold as ice, trembled. "He killed that boy—that boy you sent. The one with the blond hair."

"You're freezing," he couldn't ignore such a little thing. He touched her cheek next to her blue lips. "Let's get you to the kitchen, we can talk there."

Mai shook her head, her eyes going shiny, though no tears falling. "No, I want to stay in the sun. There wasn't any down there, and I…" her face twisted with grief before she buried her face into his shoulder. Anything else she said devolved into muffled sobs, and he tried to make do with rubbing the goose bumps along her arms.

Yasu was still talking to Masako about the city below ("It's really there? And they won't start blowing every one up, right?" "Of course not, that'd kill and scatter all of them—can I go already?"), but Ayako and Takigawa had gathered in around Kazuya. For once, Kazuya didn't mind their attention, or the fact that he hadn't bothered to hide his affection as he held the dripping wet, copper tailed mermaid to him.

"Want a hand?" asked Takigawa. "We can find you two a warm spot on the second deck."

"I'll go get some blankets and some hot tea," said Ayako with a happy clap of her hands before running off.

Kazuya accepted Takigawa's outstretched hand to help him to his feet. There, he picked Mai up from the deck like his bride, stepped about the dripping skirt of her tail, and made his way with Takigawa towards the stairs. He ended up needing the man's help to manage her tail on the narrow steps.

"I thought you wanted to stay down there," Kazuya said, rather breathless due to his emotions and her weight.

"Why did you think that?" she asked against his neck.

"I told that black merman to ask you if you wanted to come with me. He said you said no."

Her arms tightened about his neck. "So he lied to you too."

Kazuya could feel that there was something behind that, but after remembering the dead cold look the merman had given him, figured it could wait. He hadn't trusted him within a foot of Mai anyways. The boy had said he didn't want Kazuya dead, as it would upset her, but Kazuya just hoped he still cared enough about Mai to keep to his word long enough for him to make it back to land.

Ayako ran back with a thick quilt and towels, which see spread out on the sun-warmed wood of the deck. Kazuya gently settled Mai on the quilt, accepting one of the towels form Takigawa to drape over tail and shoulders.

"I'll go get more," said Takigawa, running after Ayako, who had just left to get to the tea.

Kazuya busied himself with drying her off, as though she had become a small child fresh from a bath. It just went to show her state that she didn't bother to tell him she could do it herself, but sat there, weeping tearlessly and keeping a hold on the hem of his shirt.

"My eyes hurt," she whimpered.

He dropped the towel and brushed his fingertips to her closed eyes. A thrill spiked through him as she nuzzled into his touch. Flecks of pearls sprinkled along her lashes, glittering with pale rainbows in the setting sun, and Kazuya couldn't believe something so beautiful could exist.

He forgot that he wasn't good with comforting and wrapped his arms about her.

"It's okay, now," he said. "I got you."

"Will you—will you buy me a strawberry milkshake?" She hiccupped.

He laughed, pulling away to kiss her forehead. "As many as you want. Just get warmed up, okay?"

He went back to work drying her off and wrapping the quilt about her. As her fins slowly dried, she laid back against the deck, the reddening sun turning their world amber and gold. The navy of the night could be seen encroaching from the east. Suddenly finding himself impossibly weary, he laid down beside her, still rubbing her hands in his own to warm them.

"You're all peely," she said, her eyelids half closed.

"You're beautiful."

She smiled, the pearl powder glittering from her cheekbones. "Did you really come all this way for me? That's very illogical of you, Mr. Scientist."

"I think it's perfectly logical. All of human nature is dependent on the need to be loved and to feel they are valued. What value or love is there if I shrugged you off and left?"

"What about you, though?"

"What value would my existence be if I treated yours like such? How one treats others is how they themselves are treated. That golden rule and all."

She closed her red rimmed eyes and chuckled. "You're such a nerd. You could have just said you loved me."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

And that broke whatever chain had been holding the last of his aching in place. Kazuya found himself in a blissful state he had never before experienced, where he needed or wanted for nothing.

With that, he too closed his eyes, letting out a relieved sigh that reached all the way down to his toes.

"Thank you, Naru…Kazuya."

"You're welcome."


	35. And Wuv, Twoo Wuv

**I give up. I'll probably be better tomorrow, maybe I won't, whatever, but screw today.**

Chapter 34

Mai woke up to the sound of waves and Naru's breathing. Beneath the salt and fresh air smell of the ocean, she could smell his sage musk and smiled. She hadn't realized how fractured and partial she had been until being close to him reminded her of what it meant to be whole. How could her feelings for this man grow so much in such a short time, especially when he wasn't around?

She squeezed his fingers, which had intertwined in hers as they fell asleep. He must have been tired from his journey to have done so in the open.

Then she felt her feet.

Snapping her eyes open, she unwound her fingers from his and sat up. Blankets slid off her, catching a bit against the shells of her top. She had to tug up said blankets to reveal her pale, perfectly human feet. Not caring that she was essentially naked underneath the blankets with Naru, she beamed and wiggled her toes, glorying in the feel. Beyond them she could see the sea in the glow of one of the deck lights, and above them the great expanse of the night sky.

The breeze swept over her in a sudden gust and she shivered.

"You should get inside."

Naru sat up besides her, rubbing his eyes with his palms.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up."

"I'm a light sleeper," he said. "I'm afraid the room you had before is taken up, but you can take my bed. I've got a cot in the engine room anyways—if Yasu hasn't commandeered it."

Mai nodded, still not feeling quite awake, and moved her arm to begin wrapping one of the abandoned towels about her waist. Her hand knocked over a thermos and it rolled into Naru's hand. He opened it up, sniffed inside, and gave a small smile.

"Tea." He pulled out a tea bag. "Cold, over saturated tea, but we'll say the thought counted. We were the ones to fall asleep after all."

Mai stared at the thermos. When was the last time she had even tasted something that didn't have the tang of the sea?

Suddenly, her stomach gave a loud, embarrassing grumble. She slapped her arms about her middle, face hot.

"I, um, was kind of sick earlier today," she mumbled. "So I haven't had anything to eat…"

Naru frowned as he twisted the top back onto the thermostat. "Are you still not feeling well?"

"No, I feel fine, it was just a mental sort of sick-thing, really."

If anything that made him frown deeper. Setting the thermos down, he got up and started to fold up the blankets. Mai managed to tie a towel about her hips by the time Naru was ready to fold the one on top.

"In the morning," he said, draping the lot over his arm. "Where do you want to go?"

"What do you mean?"

He gave her a familiar, strangely missed look that told her he thought she was being abnormally stupid. "The only reason I'm out here is to prove whether mermaids exist or not. Since that is essentially done with, I'm free. Mind you, we have other folk who probably would like to get to land and a strawberry milkshake to find."

She chuckled at the serious expression on his face as he talked about hunting down milkshakes. Somehow, the laughter reawakened her to her fragile, vulnerable state, and feeling her chin starting to wrinkle up with oncoming tears, she snaked her arms about his chest and squeezed him tight. He had an awkward time trying to hug back with one arm full of blankets and the other holding a thermos.

When she shivered again, he pushed her off.

"Inside," he said. "Please."

"Can I get some pants first?"

If she didn't know him better, she would have said he flushed at her question, maybe even squirmed.

"You're seriously depleting my stock of pants. Mind you, please don't lose another pair in the ocean or we'll both be half naked."

"Yes sir."

They walked together down to his cabin, where he stoically waited outside after dropping the blankets off in his room (apparently his crew had chosen his room to raid for blankets and towels anyways), while Mai pilfered around for something she could wriggle into. The only thing she found was a pair of jeans, which she came out holding up with her hands, one of his T-shirts swallowing her petite torso.

"Do you have a belt or something?" she asked.

He seemed reluctant to go in there at the same time as her, but stepped past to pull up a belt from a corner of his drawers, which he tossed to her. As she tightened the pants so they wouldn't fall off, he went about unloading the blankets onto his bed for her and throwing the wet towels into the bathroom.

"Guy pants are weird," said Mai, leaning down to roll up the pant legs. "They're all tight around the butt but have this huge space in the front. Does your junk really take up so much space?"

She could feel him glaring at her. "Do you really expect me to answer that question?"

She shrugged. "Guess I'm still recovering from the sex talk my grandma gave me yesterday."

He paused, dropping a corner of the quilt. "So that's who you met? Do you…have other family down there? Were you really a…princess?"

Shifting in place and glancing from him to the lights on his ceiling, she gave him a quirky grin that somehow managed to express her discomfort.

"Yeah. I am. My grandmother's the queen. Kind of hard to believe, huh?"

He smirked and went to unfolding another blanket. "You're definitely not the royal type."

"Hey!"

"What princess asks about the size of a man's junk?"

She flushed. "Have you ever worn women's pants before? Scratch that, it's just weird, okay?"

He was laughing again, much as he had when he had first pulled her up from the side of the boat. A liquid heat, like the sun in her blood, bled out at the sound and the memory of his expression as he reached for her.

She suddenly wanted to touch him again.

Naru finished straightening out the blankets and turned to her with a tender smile that did nothing to quell the urges and warmth within her.

"Let me get my notebook. I want to hear all of it. Absolutely everything." He paused, his eyes jerking down and back up her body before he looked away, and now she could see he really was beginning to redden. "I can warm up this tea. The others might want to listen to, if you're okay with that."

"They seem nice enough."

He smiled again. It was probably the most he had smiled since she had met him, and it was doing awful things to her stomach, though mainly it just made her want to tackle him and scream. Love did strange things to a person.

"They're good people," he said softly.

As they moved to leave together, he rather shyly reached for her hand, reaching out finger by finger to brush hers, as though uncertain how to do it. He had his eyes lowered, as though nervous he might do it wrong. When she laughed, he jerked back, but she caught his hand before he could run.

"Stop being so shy, what happened to my arrogant narcissist?"

He gave her hand a squeeze, averted his face, turned off the light, and walked them back outside. They crossed the 2nd deck, down the stairs, and to a door where voices echoed on the other side and the windows glowed with light. He twisted it open to reveal the yellow tiled, old fashion kitchen. The white metal table, screwed into the floor, was filled with Naru's crew. There was the red haired woman and tall blond man from before, who had so kindly brought her towels and blankets. A frumpy, dark haired boy with a bit of grease on his cheek, who could have been the same age as Naru, sat at the corner opposite Yui, who had leaned his chair back against a wall and looked characteristically disconnected from the world.

They went quiet on seeing them.

Naru closed the door behind him, muffling the ocean's waves. "Mai," he gestured to the crew. "Ayako, Takigawa, and Yasu."

They grinned at her.

Yasu, the frumpy boy, gave a low whistle. "Dang, boss, no wonder you crossed an ocean for her."

Naru dropped her hand, as though caught doing something embarrassing. "It was just a gulf, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't make comments on her looks."

"If you keep talking like that, she'll dump you," said Takigawa, putting his elbow to the table and setting his square jaw on the palm of his hand. He could have been in his late twenties, along with the red-haired woman besides him. "Girls like hearing that they're cute."

"Yes, but not from lewd perverts like you two," said Ayako with a sniff, before she returned her happy smile to Mai and pulled out a chair besides her. "Come sit by me, Mai! I've waited so long to meet you."

Takigawa had the decency to look offended, though Yasu ruined it by shrugging and saying, "I can get that."

By now, Mai's neck felt more than a little hot from all the attention, though she was having too much fun watching Naru quietly squirm in ways she suspected only she noticed to not get too embarrassed.

She accepted the seat next to Ayako, though Naru turned down Yasu's offer of a chair and went to the stove, where he poured the contents of the thermos into a pot and added some water.

"What's wrong with my tea?" asked Ayako, a bit insulted.

"We fell asleep, so it's steeped for too long. Would one of you mind helping me make some food? She hasn't eaten today."

Nearly everyone jumped up, including Yui, and Mai squeaked with alarm and babbled half formed excuses to divert the attention from her. Takigawa ended up being the one accepted by Naru to crowd up the cooking space after declaring he had a talent for grilling and had caught some fish that day. Mai didn't want to mention that she was sick of fish, thereby drawing more attention to her.

Though she hadn't needed to, as Ayako spoke up for her.

"The girl's just lived underwater for the past forever, do you really think she wants to eat more fish?"

Takigawa face palmed. "Crap, I hadn't thought of that."

"No worry," said Naru, who was already at the fridge. "We got some chicken at our last fill up and some pasta. Mai, you won't mind that?"

She released a puff of air in release. "That sounds amazing." And it did. Heck, she would have been willing to eat her least favorite food as long as it didn't include fish.

Conversation, harmonized by the sounds of cooking food, ensued. Yui went back to leaning against the wall, though he didn't look as disconnected as before, even going as far as too make a comment here and there. Yasu produced a deck of cards from somewhere and a game of BS insued, joined by even Yui, who turned out to be a master of poker face. The first time he muttered 'bull shit' in his solemn, serious way, Takigawa nearly forgot to reveal his cards they all got so caught up in laughing.

Mai could have been in heaven. No, she was in heaven. Heaven was old, ugly kitchen of friendly people with the smell of food and a game of cards. Heaven was with Kazuya Shibuya.

A plate of spaghetti with chunks of chicken was set before her by a beaming Takigawa. She almost hugged him in delight. It was the best spaghetti she had ever tasted, chicken became her favorite meat, and the game was paused so everyone could crowd around the small table and eat.

So great was her content, that she barely paid mind to when her plate had emptied and her head lolled down to the table. She wanted to sleep like this. Her head on the warm table, the others talking blocking out the sound of the waves, and Naru's knee against her own.

He put a hand on her back. "Guess the details can wait till tomorrow?"

She nodded and sat up, rubbing her eyes. "I can tell you now, if you want."

"Nah, go get some sleep," said Ayako. "God knows you need it. I know Naru does."

Yasu and Takigawa 'oooed' and even managed a short catcall despite Naru's death glare from hell. Ayako slapped Takigawa on the back of the head to quiet him, making Yasu laugh.

"I'm sleeping in the engine room," said Naru, nose wrinkled. "So stay off that cot, Yasu."

"You're going to make me sleep on the floor? Come on, man!"

"Fine, I'll sleep on the floor, just shut up."

Mai frowned. "I don't want to make you sleep on the floor."

"Yeah, she can come sleep with me," said Ayako.

"You've got a twin bed," said Takigawa. "And you're huge, so it isn't like you could share it."

Ayako swatted him on the bag of the head again. He cursed. And Yasu guffawed.

Naru's tentative fingers tugged on hers once more. "Let's get out of here."

Rubbing her eyes, she nodded with a yawn, and allowed herself to be led out the kitchen door to the chorus of 'good nights.'

The chill night air licked across her skin, momentarily waking her a bit. Naru got a firmer grip on her hand and kept hold of it down the deck and back up the stairs to his cabin. On reaching it, he let go of her hand, bit her good night, and turned to leave. Without thinking, she stopped him.

"The bed's big enough for two," she said, the heat induced by his laughter and smiles suddenly turning her insides to knotted, rubber snakes.

His narrow eyed, flat expression made her instantly regret saying that.

"I'm not sleeping with you," he said lowly.

"I-I meant for me and Ayako! We could share it and you could take her bed."

"It's fine, Mai, it's just sleeping."

She gave a sigh of exasperation, not entirely sure why she felt so offended. "I wasn't trying to be a slut, I was trying to be considerate. You deserve some good sleep too."

"Don't ever refer to yourself as a slut. I was not implying that at all."

"Then what did you expect I would think when you said it like that? 'I'm not sleeping with you,'—it was like I asked you to kill someone."

"That's an over exaggeration. You know why I can't do that, and I'm not going to do that to you."

"Do what to me, exactly?"

His jaw clenched and he ducked down his chin, unable to meet her eye. "I'm not…not going to take your virtue like that."

Now she was all levels of blushing. "I wasn't asking you to have sex with me!"

He flinched and his hand moved as though to cover her mouth but thought better of it. "Quiet down!"

"Why are you so worried about what they think anyways?"

"I'm not, I'm just private—look, I'm sorry, okay? Will you calm down please? I didn't mean to offend you."

And, since she was beginning to feel ashamed that she had even got offended at all when it should have been obvious that he hadn't meant to offend her, she huffed, ran her hands down her face, and gave a little tired groan.

"I'm sorry too. I'm just…ugh." She let her hands flopped to her sides. "Look, just because you sleep in the same bed as me doesn't mean you have to have sex with me. And if you're so worried about that, just promise to marry me when we get home."

It was like she'd thrown a bucket of ice over his head while making him watch two dolphins made out of jello perform.

Then she registered what she had just said and wished she could tear out her vocal chords. Because now not only did he probably think she was hankering to do the nasty with him, but she'd assume he'd want to marry her, and whether he did or not didn't change how uncomfortable a position she had put him in. Damned if he said no, damned if he said yes. Wow, she sucked.

"Night." She opened the door and rushed to close it behind her.

His hand stopped it. "Will you?"

It took her a full five seconds to register what he had said, and still it couldn't compute. "What?"

"Will you marry me?" His voice was shaking. "I-I had been thinking it as a way—a way to protect you anyways. Before you got taken away. As a ward of the state I can't legally protect you from anything the government tries to do, but if you had Britain citizenship—" Whatever her face had twisted into must have frightened him, for he quickly added. "It's not because I want an excuse to sleep in a bed or with you—not that I don't want— _damn it_ , Mai, how can you do this to me? It's like I lose my mind!"

"Sure." She said.

"Just go to bed already. Damn." His hand disappeared from the door and he stepped back, but she didn't close it. If anything, she opened it wider.

"I said yes, you stupid scientist. I'll freaking marry you." And before he could think otherwise or squirm away, she latched onto his shirt and yanked him inside.

"Wait, Mai—"

"I'm not seducing you, asshole, I'm telling you to go to sleep."

"Do you always have to go with the insults?" Despite the irritated words, he sounded as though ready to laugh.

"Only when I'm exhausted and you're being ridiculous." She closed the door, plunging them into darkness. "Besides, I'm a virgin, I don't know the first thing about having sex, and frankly I'm so tired I don't care. Not to mention I've missed you so much I'm surprised I didn't puke blood so I'm not too inclined to let you out of my sight until I'm well and thoroughly sick of you. Consider being my pillow as payment for sticking me in that stupid tank of yours in the first place."

And actually proving that he was a genius for the first time since she had returned to this ship, Naru stayed quiet and allowed her to push him onto the bed, where she latched onto his arm and promptly passed out.


	36. Manly Bonding and Death

**And because I'm a jerk.**

Chapter 35

This was possibly the most thoughtless thing Mai had ever done to him.

Sure, she could hug his arm all happy and peaceful like and go straight to sleep. That just had to be his luck, especially after she'd thrown that bomb on him that she would be totally fine marrying him and, in turn, turning his weird little dream of sitting by a fire with her hands in his hair a soon reality.

Add in that she was wearing his clothes, that he could feel her breasts pressing against his arm, that one of her legs had come up to cuddle with his own, and that he wasn't even entirely sure that she was wearing underwear, and the fact that he had been dreaming and longing for her ever since she'd gone missing, and you got the recipe for the most uncomfortable case of insomnia ever.

Not to mention that he could tell from the feel of said breast on his upper arm that she wasn't wearing a bra, and how could she? It wasn't like he kept spare bras in his wardrobe.

Needless to say, he was not happy. A voice in his head told him he should be. After all, he was a man, and what man wouldn't want a beautiful, attractive woman that he loved cuddled up to his side like this? But to Kazuya, he couldn't comprehend how a guy could be happy when he couldn't…satisfy said wants. All he could do was lay there, struggle to hold still so he wouldn't wake her up, and suffer.

And she had no clue?

He sighed to himself. Of course she didn't have a clue. If she had, she wouldn't have even asked. He had been caught off guard with the marriage thing, which was why he had allowed her to drag him in here in the first place.

Another part of him, the same part that caused said suffering, wondered if it would be so bad just to turn over and slip his hand underneath the too-big shirt she wore—

He shut it down hard. Once he was sure she was asleep, he was heading down to the engineering room, _that was it_. If he…hadn't calmed down by then, he could always take a dip in the ocean or something.

'Or,' whispered that same part still connected to the soft feel of a breast on his arm before suggesting something that disgusted him, but might just relieve some of the pressure—unless Mai woke up and-

He shut that down too. Mostly because it was hard enough just to be him at the moment.

 _Ocean,_ he told himself. _Cold, icy ocean. Yeah._

Why did he have to like her so much? Why?

Though he thought the moment would never come, he eventually concluded that Mai was indeed asleep, and after an experimental tug of the arm she had captive, he confirmed it and managed to slip away.

Sweet, sweet freedom.

Yasu stared a bit when he appeared in the engine room soaking wet and shivering.

"What happened to you?"

Naru shook his hair and peeled off his soaking shirt. "I felt like a swim. I'm on watch tonight. Needed to wake up." When Yasu continued to stare at him, he resisted the urge to chuck the wet shirt at his face. "What?"

"I thought Lin always did that."

Kazuya rolled his eyes. "He needs sleep too. Do pay attention to the people around you."

"But why would you say you're sleeping down here with me, then?"

Kazuya silently cursed himself. "Recent development."

Yasu gave a slow smirk. "Right. Took you quite a bit to say good night to her. Did she refuse to give you some ass so you had to take a—"

Smack. Kazuya's wet shirt hit and wrapped about Yasu's head like a python.

"She fell asleep the moment we got there," Kazuya said viciously. "But besides that, I've made it perfectly clear I do not appreciate _anyone_ talking about her like that. It's none of your business."

Yasu struggled a bit to find the ends of the shirt to begin unwrapping it. "Aw, come on, boss, I thought we were building a friendship here. You didn't have to lie to me. Every guy has to deal with hard ons."

Kazuya started to consider chucking his shoes next. Yasu must have sensed Kazuya's intent, for the moment he cleared his face of the shirt he said in a small voice, "Please don't kill me."

"Get off the cot."

Yasu practically launched off the cot. As Kazuya settled onto the cot to peel off his pants, Yasu dug out the sleeping bag from where he had tucked it away besides a fridge.

"So…what did happen? Did she, like, fall asleep before anything could happen, or…"

"What do you not understand about none of your business?"

Yasu groaned and threw the sleeping bag on the floor like a child. "Get where I'm coming from! You're the only guy on this ship getting any action and I haven't seen a single mermaid, despite gorilla taping my flippers together and paddling around like an imbecile."

This made Kazuya smirk. That had been funny. More the fact that he had actually done it rather than the actual watching him wriggle about the yacht like a dolphin.

"And I really did think we, you know…" Yasu sighed and crouched down to straighten the sleeping bag. "Forget it."

Kazuya managed to pop his jeans off and asked if it was alright if he could put them on the hot generator so they would dry. Yasu shrugged a 'sure,' and Kazuya draped them over the rumbling black bulk in the next room over. The cooler room and the engine room were only separated by an incomplete wall, which didn't even bother to have a space for the door. It just stopped three-quarters of the way across the room. When the engine was on, the ceiling lights and sea foam linoleum floor vibrated with it.

Kazuya smacked his socks alongside the pants and sighed. This was why he didn't have many friends back home, he realized. But he didn't want to talk about…about sex. Sex was private. Between two people only. That was partially why it was so special, why it was called 'intimacy' or 'love making.' Adding another to the room just…ruined it.

But did he have to talk about that? After all, he hadn't actually…done anything. And, with friends, you talked about that sort of stuff, right? Maybe that's why he didn't have many friends. Because he never confided in anyone. That would go with what he had observed in his psychology studies and when working out ways to get people to confide stories in him for his research.

And did he even want this frumpy hippy as his friend?

…yes.

He pulled up his feet, somehow feeling more dressed than just his boxer briefs if he had his feet between his crotch and Yasu's position on the floor.

"She agreed to marry me."

Yasu's eyes popped in his direction. "No way."

Kazuya gave him a hesitant smile. He was feeling very out of his comfort zone. The guy was sure to comment on his age, say it was too early, ask how long they had known each other or why he hadn't even bothered to get a ring-

But Yasu surprised him by standing up and thumping him hard on the back.

"Way to go boss! You must have some serious stuff!"

Kazuya shrugged him off, trying and failing to keep his smile down. "I did nothing. She's just…" He blanched. He couldn't tell Yasu she had technically been the one to suggest it.

But Yasu must have been too eager to keep Kazuya talking to him, for he just gave him a thumbs up and asked, "So, did she really just fall asleep? You couldn't have gotten engaged if she just passed out the moment you got there."

"No, we…talked. She…she didn't like the idea of me sleeping on the floor and she said she had missed me, so she wanted to, uh, share a bed with me—"

"Ooooo-OOOOOOOH!"

"Shut up! Nothing happened, okay? We didn't even kiss."

"What? Oh, come on, really? She asked you to sleep with her!"

Kazuya wondered if one's face could get permanently stained red and tried to hide it behind his arm while looking casual. "Not like that, but that's exactly why I said no. I didn't—I didn't want anything to happen." At Yasu's incredulous look, he shouted, "I have morals!"

"Okay, okay, I get it, marriage before carriage or horse and babies and—you jumped in the ocean to get rid of a hard on, didn't you?"

"Just shut up, okay? I don't want to talk about this anymore, I'm sorry I even started."

"Okay, yes, then, yes you did—that's hilarious. What, did she still want you to sleep with her? Is that why she agreed to marry you? So you'd sleep in the same bed as her?"

"Yasu, shut up or I'll make you. You're making this all sound way worse than it actually is."

"Oh my god, _she did!?_ She hauled you in there, didn't she? Probably fell asleep on you and—oh Lord, she was wearing your clothes, that mean she didn't have a bra—"

Kazuya snatched up one of his shoes and chucked it at him with all of his strength. Unfortunately, Yasu dodged it, laughing and somehow looking sympathetic all at the same time.

"I'm sorry, man, she probably has no idea, especially if she's never had to—she's never been with a guy, right?"

"Of course not," said Kazuya, his other shoe already in hand. "I mean, she's—I thought I said shut up?"

"Wow, I think this is the first time I've actually seen you act your age. You're so cute!"

The other shoe missed him too, but that was because Kazuya was too mortified to aim correctly.

He changed his mind. He didn't want to have friends his age. You just didn't call another guy cute—you just didn't. And it was horrible enough to experience the whole contained lusts without having someone laugh at you for it.

But, for some reason, when the two had finally settled down for the night, Kazuya felt a little better about the situation. He hadn't realized he had been afraid that he was an abnormal, sick pervert just because she…attracted him so much. Somehow, having Yasu treat it like he did made him feel…normal.

And feeling normal was a feeling Kazuya, child prodigy from birth, certainly was not use to feeling.

"Yasu?"

"Mmhmm?"

"…I'm sorry for throwing my shoes at you."

"It's cool."

He would have said thanks, but then he'd have to explain why he was saying it, and Kazuya knew that he had done all the social experimentation he could handle for the night.

He must have only just nodded off when the ship suddenly lurched to the side, toppling Kazuya onto the floor and sending Yasu sliding into a wall. The lights flickered.

"What the hell—" Yasu yelped as the ship begun tilting back.

But Kazuya was already to his feet on his way to the door. He caught himself on the handle just as the ship continued tipping up the other direction, sending cot and boy in sleeping bag back across the room and into the freezers.

"It's the kraken!" Yasu screeched.

"Fire up the engines!" yelled Kazuya, before throwing himself up the stairs. Sea spray splashed into his face from the dark night outside, and he could hear cries of alarm from the rooms above.

Outside, the air glowed about him as the deck lights reflected off of thick, smoke-like mist.

Fear. Cold, simple, and sharp, spiked into his gut.

"Lin!" He screamed, sprinting towards the stairs. "Get us out! Get us out!"

The boat pitched with another wave, slamming him into the railing. That'd leave a nasty bruise in the morning.

Somewhere within, the engines gave a coughing start. Doors on the upper level thwacked open.

"Oy! What's going on?!"

"Takigawa!" Kazuya hollered, pulling himself along the railing as the boat pitched to the other side and down the wave. "Get everyone tied down!"

"Kazuya, what's happening?!" yelled Ayako.

"Just get tied down! Quick!"

And he reached the stairs. The boat reared up, nearly flattening Kazuya against the steps in his attempts to stay on. The engine beneath pitched louder, grinding for control. Behind he could hear the left open doors thwacking against the walls again.

He had to reach Mai.

At the top of the stairs, he barely caught the sight of Takigawa holding Ayako to the wall as he finished up a knot before the boat reached the crescent of the wave and tipped over.

The door to the control room snapped open. "Kazuya!"

He saw it as though in slow motion: Takigawa's arm bulging to hold on to the tie downs on the wall. Ayako's hair flying up past her screaming face like red seaweed. The glimmer of the seawater on the deck lights as it came down, like a crystal rain shower.

And Mai, at the end, wearing only his over-sized T-shirt, her face turned up to the water, and nothing holding her in place.

Lin's iron-like arm snapped about his middle.

Then his world turned upside down.

Water beat about him like a herd of bulls, rushing about him, flipping him end on end. Bits of what had to be his boat thwacked against him with enough force to break bones. The flickering lights of his ship played across his eyes until he couldn't tell if his eyes were closed, open, or not there at all. He couldn't tell if the bar around his waist was Lin anymore, or if it was a bar of the railing of his ship pinning him down, drowning him beneath the bulk of the sea.

And then there was air.

He hacked, coughed, regressed to his most basic needs for survival.

Behind him he heard the heavy breaths of Lin above the waves.

And through one last flicker of light beneath the water, Kazuya saw what would haunt him forever.

The belly of his boat, the propellers at the end still puttering. And the silhouette of the rest of her beneath the water.

Capsized.

"Hold on!" yelled Lin.

For they were shrinking—no, the walls of water around them were growing. They roared like a vast animal, watery arms reaching high to come crashing down atop them.

And all Kazuya could think about was that he had left Yasu down in the engine room. He hadn't told him to tie up.

And Takigawa and Ayako—were they stuck beneath the ship now? Knotted and trapped in the dark?

The tops of the waves began to fall, sprinkling heavy rain atop their heads.

"MAI!"

The great arm of water pounded down, snuffing out the lone light of his ship, smashing Lin and him infinitely deep into the water below.

Down. Down. Down to the endless, unknowable deep.


	37. What? She is a Princess

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Chapter 36

The pain of the change was lost in her urgency to see. She had seen Ayako and Takigawa tied to the hall, and the rushing of the water blinded Mai to their position. When the deck tottered above her, she forced her eyes open to see them floating in the glow of the dying deck light, surrounded with sea foam and bubbles.

It was almost beautiful.

She darted forward, hitting against the deck as the current caught her, but struggled on. The legs of Ayako caught against her back in a wild kick and she cringed.

"Takigawa! Ayako!"

Ayako looked down at her in shock, but Takigawa didn't so much as twitch. Weaving between them, she found the nylon rope about their middles just as the lights died out and their world turned black.

The engine whined to a stop.

Frantic, she felt along the rope, desperate for the knot, praying that Takigawa hadn't passed out or hit his head to hard or—

A hand found her arm and pressed something into her hand. She couldn't hear anything above the roar of the sea about her, but thought she could feel the plastic grip of a pocket knife.

Praying she didn't accidentally stabbed them, she felt out the blade beneath the rope and tugged. As it snapped, her eyes adjusted, and she could see the faintest glow of the night sky through the mist and water.

Ayako's arms snapped about her desperately, and for a moment Mai was overwhelmed by her weight. Takigawa floated from her grasp. She couldn't leave him.

But she was smaller than Ayako, and the woman was making troubling noises behind her.

Kicking her tail hard, climbing up the water like a mountain, she pulled herself out from beneath the sinking ship and the faintest glow above.

Just as she broke water and Ayako took a desperate breath, a wall of water pounded them back down. Ayako was torn from her back and Mai was sent reeling into the darkness.

"No!"

But she could barely see the dark shape of the yacht and little more. Darkness surrounded her, currents tugged her back and forth, fighting to drag her away.

They were all going to drown. Kazuya, Yui, Ayako, Yasu, Takigawa…

Except her.

She had to do something. She was a freaking mermaid, for crying out loud! She could swim, she could breathe—

And desperately she started forward again, fighting against the rising waves, keeping her eyes wide to see the forms of the others. But even as she did so, a sob escaped her.

"No, no, this can't be happening, no!"

She had to hurry. They would drown—they were drowning, and she couldn't see them. The boat was sinking, beaten down by the out of the blue huge waves—the same that had stolen her before—

She stopped. The mist. The huge waves out of the blue.

The mermen.

Taking a great gulp of air, she remembered a bony, murky colored mermaid sitting before a wall of chains as she sang to the ocean beyond. What had Jamie taught her about singing again? How had it been so different from singing as a human?

And if they were already drowning…

Mai pushed out all of her need and desperation and urgency—and sang.

Her voice came out louder than she had expected it to. It spread out like an echo over the canyon, haunting and brassy. She thought she could hear its reflection off of the bulk of the dying yacht, maybe even hear it being swallowed up by the depths below. But she sang as she never had before, wordlessly, and with each inch of her soul.

 _Help._

Familiar blue-green lights budded out from the depths. They grew bigger and bigger, like comets rushing to earth from a night sky.

Her stomach started to hurt. Her head was beginning to spin, begging for her to take a breath, but she pushed out an even louder note, higher and more desperate than ever.

She only had to blink and they surrounded her, the embodiments of the currents in the way the whirled about her, brushed against her, filled the sea with the glow of tiny crystals hung about their necks.

Hundreds of mermen.

Their eerie light lit up the sinking yacht. She could see Ayako, still with her hand to the surface, Takigawa hanging up from the yacht, Yui holding tight to Kazuya near the surface, but no sign of Yasu.

The mermen turned to her, bringing their fins to their fronts in a mid-water bow. A dozen voices vibrated the mermish language to her, and she found herself eternally glad that she had learned at least enough to tell them what she needed them to do.

"Save!" she cried, pointing towards the yacht and floating bodies.

To her astonishment, they didn't question. They turned from her and flipped towards the boat, catching Kazuya and his floating crewmates out of the water like diving spears and shooting them to the surface. Even the currents about her seemed to have stilled, and the surface undulations and thickenings seemed to be calming as the waves died down. Mermen dipped in and out of the boat like tongues, and she let out a cry as one brought out the limp form of a boy from the bottom deck.

She moved to paddle to the top, but was stopped by a familiar, broad, boyish faced merman.

"Vovo," she breathed.

The great merman bowed his fins to his forehead and offered her his hand while gesturing her to the surface. He was asking for permission to accompany her. She accepted his hand, and together they pulled to the surface, where the mermen holding humans had begun to gather.

To her astounded relief, everyone was coughing for air when her head broke the surface. The mermen had done some sort of Heimlich maneuver to push the water from their stomachs and lungs, and their glowing crystal pendants lit up the waters like many swimming pool lights. More than a few of them looked rather confused as to why they held deflated humans in their arms. They seemed comforted by Mai's delighted face, however, and a few even smiled when she cried a delighted, 'Thank you!' They needn't understand English to hear her gratitude.

"Ugh," moaned Ayako, before snapping up her head and getting a good look at the merman that held her, who gave her an uncertain smile. "Oh!"

"Yeah. This is demeaning," grumbled Takigawa. "Ugh, my head."

"Couldn't you have summoned up a few babes?" asked Yasu in between coughs that still spluttered water from his lungs.

Yui looked more than a little strange floating in the arms of merman smaller than him. Vovo left Mai's side to replace him.

And Kazuya, teeth chattering, just looked at her, as though he had thought to never see her again—which he probably had thought.

Blue-green glows floated up to the surface. Dark shapes of mermen still rising from the deep, their light joining the others as their heads broke above the surface. Only when one of them came towards Mai and spoke in concerned, heavy mermish did the freshly rescued humans start to look concern.

Mai curled her hands to her chest, her faulty mermish finally getting the best of her. "Uh, I…I…"

"He ask what you want with them."

Mai turned her head towards the sound. The lone merman without a light about his neck swam towards her, his scales black obsidian mirrors to the glow of the more colored mermen about him.

"Zen."

He came to her with his face bowed. She couldn't see his eyes past the wet fringe of his bangs, and his mouth was thin and expressionless.

"What will you have with them, princess? Land is far. They may die of cold before arrive. Their ship has sunk with the rest of the intruders and not be retrieved, and as soon as Maitre find them, they will die. Your word not stronger."

Mai bit her lip, but it was Kazuya who spoke up.

"There's a boat near the front of the ship, behind some big doors. If they could swim down and bring it up, we could ride in there."

Zen did not acknowledge that Kazuya had spoken. He didn't even raise his head. For all Mai knew, he had grown deaf.

The mermen waited for her words. All the while, the last of them rose up, till Mai floated in a small pool of green light and mermen, all watching her, waiting.

She swallowed and looked to Kazuya. "Describe where the boat is to me. I'll go down with them."

"That not necessary," said the flat voice of Zen. "I understand English better than speak. I know boats well enough."

So Kazuya told him, and Mai was suddenly glad Zen had offered, as she still couldn't tell the difference between portside and starside or poop deck or which sail was what. Zen nodded and dived down, and Mai's paltry mermish was enough to tell the other mermen to help him. Dozens followed after him, more than needed, but the rest kept close to her, almost apprehensively so, and for the first time Mai wondered if her song had frightened them.

Beneath the hush of the calming ocean waves, she could hear Kazuya's and his crew's teeth chattering.

Sooner than she expected, the white bulk of small row boat rose up into the green light, lifted up by almost all the mermen that had gone down with Zen. They pushed the boat up above the surface, then, remarkably, managed to lift it high enough to drain it of all its water and set it back on the surface, right side up and afloat.

One by one, the mermen lifted up their humans and deposited them into the boat. It was no luxury liner, but they all fit in well enough.

Mai frowned at noticing Kazuya only wore his underwear, and instead of blushing, she swam about to touch his arm. Ice cold.

"He will freeze," said Zen, still in that flat voice as he rose up besides her.

Yui seemed to take personal offense to this and peeled off his own shirt and light jacket, which he draped about her Naru, though Naru hardly noticed as he had pinched his arms and legs to him so tightly she could see the bones and tendons in his knuckles.

"How can we warm them up?" she asked Zen. "There's got to be some way we can keep them warm on the trip back."

Zen said nothing. The mermen shifted, glancing below them at the deep and around them in the darkness as the mist had started to clear. Starlight could just be seen beyond the bright glow of their pendants.

"Zen?"

"What would you have me do, princess?" he said, clearly enunciated, but softer than he had before. "I know nothing of human keep. My life is yours, as I can never repent for what I did, so you may use me any way you can think of."

It was her Naru who spoke up again, and she hardly understood him through the chattering of his teeth.

"Seaweed," he pushed out. "Flat, thick seaweed. We can—wrap around like…like a wet suit."

She looked to Zen. "That's the best idea we're going to get so far. Try to not get too much water in the boat as you bring it up."

He brought up his fin in a brief bow, then dove back down. At a look from her, the same men that had followed her before dove back down with him.

She looked out over the waters with the others, picturing a much vaster vessel sinking beneath the surface like Naru's yacht. An ugly, cramping feeling twisted her gut and she hugged her arms around herself.

She hoped Masako was okay.

And she wished her people hadn't of done what they did.

 **Another reminder! Today is the last day to leave a review on Erase Me. The one who wins the publishing contract is the book that gets the best response from its readers, aka, how many reviews and how good they are. Please be sure to do that before midnight tonight! .**


	38. The Dork Happily Sacrifices Himself

**So, good news. My novel has been entered into the second round of the Inkitt contest, so there are 100 more free copies and to those of you who weren't able to get your review in on time, you can do so now. Bad news is...I still have to keep trying to win by nagging people to leave reviews on my book. T.T**

 ***sigh* If you're interested in helping me get a publishing contract or just because you like my writing and would love a free book, go to Inkitt and search up "Erase Me" by yours truly, LoweFantasy.**

 **If not, here's a chapter for you. Peace, ya'll.**

Chapter 37

He ached.

He had hoped to never feel it again, but here he was, sitting on some Bahamas beach, waiting for a flash of copper—if there was to be a flash of copper.

Lin had taken it upon himself to arrange their trip home with his parents, as well as transportation for the rest of their crew along with their payment. Needless to say, Kazuya knew he had gone way over budget and that he'd have to apologies to his parents when he asked for a loan, but, then, he had also hoped to introduce them to the reason behind it all. Charming, cute, and warm, Mai would have pleased them, no doubt about it, especially his baby hungry mother.

But he had never thought she'd have…what, responsibilities? A family under the sea that may not let her back?

A family that had just ordered the execution of, not only his own crew, but that of the triple A ships as well?

Kazuya dug his toes into the sand. He wasn't stupid. He knew what that mist had meant the moment he had walked out into it. Only the merfolk could have brought about such random, catastrophic waves. No wonder that black merman—he didn't bother to remember his name—hadn't acted worried when he saw that ship.

But the triple A would come back, surely. They would have known where their ships had sunk. And a part of him wondered if the mermaid Masako had made it out alright.

But mostly, he just ached. Ached like a man whose liver was failing and his lungs not inclined to breathe.

It was because of this he had told the others to go on without him and leave him alone. Lin had been reluctant, but after leaving behind the one pistol which use to be Masako's, he left with the others.

And now here he was: dressed in clothes from a tourist shop, feet buried in the sand, eyes out towards the darkening sea, the setting sun to his back.

What if she didn't come back?

When he heard footfalls on the sand, he didn't care to think they had anything to do with him. However, he didn't find it entirely unwelcome when Yasu dropped at his side and handed him something wrapped in white deli paper.

"Num num, boss. Got to keep up that manly physic of yours."

Kazuya took it, unwrapped the sandwich, and started into it without tasting a bit. It was like chewing tissue paper.

Yasu also wore tourist shop clothes, but, unsurprisingly, it wasn't much different from what he had come on board in. His skin had tanned the least out of the lot of them, being in the engine room most of the time, but it wasn't much different from Kazuya's, which had finally slowed in its peeling. He'd be a sight back home.

"She'll come back," Yasu said.

"I don't need pointless sympathies," said Kazuya out the corner of his mouth.

"Come on, I mean it. She said she'd marry you, right? Besides, I saw her face when you pulled her out of the water." Yasu gave a happy little sigh, like a whistle. "Man oh man, I'd be lucky to ever see love like that again."

"She's only known me for a few months."

"Yeah, like that's ever mattered."

"It does. This isn't a fairy tale." Kazuya quieted at that. Those were dangerous words coming from the man who found the truth of reality in said fairy tales, and now, to all definitions, was currently living one. Forcing down another bite, he knotted his free hand in his overgrown hair and let his sandwich dangle between his knees. "Yasu, why are you here?"

"Emotional support. Also, I figured I'm more likely to see more mermaids if I hang around with you, so…"

"You're a pervert."

"Hey, I'm a man who knows what he likes and would rather hold naked women than look at them. That's more than I can say for a lot of dudes these days, wanker'n over their laptops. Disgusting."

Kazuya had to take a moment to get over the shock of what he had just heard before he said, "Please don't ever mention masturbating again. How can you even talk about stuff like that so casually? Don't you have any decorum?"

Yasu have him an odd look, as though Kazuya were the one raised in a barn and not him. "It's just us dudes. What's wrong?"

Kazuya wanted to slap him. "Don't you have anything intelligent to talk about?"

"Course I do. Whether it's interesting or not is a different story. Like I got this old '89 Chevy S10 back home I want to drop the axel on and make it a four wheel sand buggy, just for the heck of it." He paused to register Kazuya's blank look before smirking. "See? What I tell ya?"

So they both left it at that and went to staring out over the ocean together. Kazuya gave up half way through his sandwich and left it folded up in its wrapper between them. Mica and quartz glittered up from the white sand in what remained of the golden sunlight. It reminded him of a time that seemed years ago when Mai waited for him in shallow waves, every bit of her glistening like precious metals and jewels in the morning light.

Soon the sun went out like a lamp behind the island behind them, and Kazuya and Yasu had to move up the beach as the tide came in. They could see the silhouette of the other three back up the short gravel cliff side of their other three crewmembers, and on seeing them Kazuya hung back. He wasn't quite ready to meet their sympathies or empty words when they saw Mai wasn't with him.

Yasu looked back and lingered, even as a wave came up to lick at Kazuya's heels. Something in his dark eyes spoke of something just a little beyond sympathy as he met the scientist's gaze.

Like many of the new and mysterious things Kazuya had encountered in his recent interactions of the past week, it drew out a confession he hadn't thought needed to be said.

"I don't know how to move on if she doesn't get back." He hesitated, suddenly feeling cold and more than a little vulnerable in the twilight. "Do people even move on?"

Yasu shifted, glancing down at his feet as he did so. "What do you think all those love songs are about? Or do you even listen to music?"

"I listen to music."

"Then, no. I don't think you ever do move on."

And that frightened Kazuya more than seeing the mist about the deck lights or the outlined ghost of his yacht sinking belly up into the fathomless deep.

Yasu glanced up and gave him a little smile. "But I think you're dreading the verdict before it's even in. Look behind you."

Kazuya turned.

She waited not too far from where he had sat originally in shallow blue waters, her tail fin in the air above her and waves lapping over her shoulders, teasing the ends of her hair as though to take them to him. She had a smile to replace the set sun, and she once more wore one of the curious shell and fabric tops with short sleeves and spaces at the sides for gills.

"Naru! A little help?"

Something about his face made Yasu laugh, but he didn't care. He splashed to her, sending walls of water jumping out with each rushed step. He only slowed so as to not overwhelm her with water, and took extra care in scooping her up from the water and into his arms.

Then he kissed her, savoring the tang of salt.

"You're acting like I wouldn't come back," she said.

"Stupid Mai against all of those mermen and whoever else may not wish you to return? Hardly."

"Hey! I did rather well for myself!" The tail dangling from his arm slapped her fins against the waters. "Besides, I just had to work out a…compromise. That's all."

Before he could ask just what she had compromised, he heard a familiar shout back out at sea.

Five mermen waited just far enough that they wouldn't get beached as Mai had. One was the black scaled merman that had lied to them and translated for Mai, looking pale and unpleasant as ever before. The next man that drew his gaze was the giant Vovo, who hadn't strayed from Mai's side since the ship wreck, and who watched Kazuya now with just as much pent up ferocity as the black scaled one.

"In order to take her," said the black scaled man—Zen, Kazuya suddenly remembered. "Queen requests an equal…guest."

"As collateral," Mai said softly, copper eyelashes fanned against her cheeks as she averted her gaze. "It was the only way I could get her to agree on letting me go at all. Not only do I have to come back every summer, along with any children I might have, but to make sure we come back, someone needs to stay behind. Apparently they have a, um, a little island not far from the coast. A man name Jericho lives there and apparently is, well, quite sickly. They don't expect him to live long. He was one of their contacts and I suspect some girls may have come up to father daughters with him once or twice…on my grandmother's orders."

Kazuya could feel an embarrassed heat squirming in his stomach. Whoever stayed wouldn't have it much different than the mermaids at triple A, it was sounding like.

Mai's hands hooked about his neck went lax. "We don't have to, of course I can—"

"I'll go!"

Wild splashing announced the arrival of Yasu, who soaked himself from head to foot in his eagerness to get to Kazuya's side, his expression elated.

"I'll be your mermaid contact whatever!" He grinned at the stunned expressions of the mermen. "I'll get to meet some mermaids, right?"

None of the mermen looked like they knew how to respond to that question, and Mai only laughed.

"Yes, you'll get to meet mermaids," she said. "And the whole of the island will be open to you. You'll be required to upkeep the place, but they'll provide whatever you need. You can sell treasures from the sea for a good price and live comfortably. You'll be under oath to never leave here, though, and to never speak of the merfolk and their whereabouts unless it's to your successor." Her face softened and she once more went to looking down her cheeks. "You're in luck. The young man who was sent for to be the successor…didn't make it back from sea."

Kazuya's stomach clenched. So that's what John had been. More than a missionary.

Yasu, however, looked like he had just been offered the deal of a lifetime.

"Oh sweet mother Mary, this is—this is—wait, hold on, keep it straight, Yasu." He put his hands on either side of his face like the visors on a horse. "I'm here to make sure you come back, yeah, what happens if you don't?"

"We kill you," said Zen, all too much like stating the weather.

Yasu blanched.

Mai had started squirming in Kazuya's arms. "We don't have to do this—but-but if you're okay, I promise we'll—"

Kazuya stopped her with a gentle squeeze of his arms so she couldn't wriggle away. "When do you need her back by and for how long?"

Zen's hands rose dripping from the water. "Queen said all the human summer months."

"She means June, July, and August," said Mai quietly. "I'm to be at the mediator's cottage by the first of June and will be returned there at the 31st of August."

None of this seemed to settle right with him. It seemed far too easy.

"How do I know they won't just keep you if I bring you back?" he asked cautiously, all too aware of how Zen had started to move past Vovo the giant and looked to be considering how much further in he could go.

"Because," Mai bit her lip and looked back. "Because…through you I can produce more female heirs, and...and those heirs are going to need to understand the workings of the human world. My grandmother isn't so cruel as to keep those children from their father, but…" she ducked her head lower, shivering. "The day my grandmother dies, if there isn't a female heir old enough…no. They won't return me. I'll have to stay and take her place."

Kazuya had to fight back the urge to give an exasperated sigh. Guess he'd just have to keep in touch with Yasu, then. Like he gave a damn if their royal line was broken or not.

"Fine. Yasu?"

"Yeah boss?"

"Your email address is the same, right?"

To his satisfaction, the mermen looked confused.

Yasu was grinning like a drunk man, and saluted him like a sailor. "Yessir. I'll send pictures and—oh golly, can I meet one tonight? Just tonight, I promise I won't be a creep."

"You already are." Naru gave him a nudge towards the mermen. The tide was lapping up to his hips. "Here's your hostage, willing and able. We'll be back the fist of June."

He moved to turn, Mai still in his arms—when he was stopped by a sharp pain around his ankle that caused him to stumble and fall. Mai went splashing down into the water, which was high enough by now to temporarily submerge Kazuya's head.

When he came back up, Mai had been pushed aside, and an angry, pale face with ocean floor eyes glared into his. Something impossibly thin and painful as a needle pressed against his neck. Out of the corner of his eye, Kazuya thought he could see what looked like a long, sharpened fish bone.

"You bring her back," he hissed, low enough only they could hear. "Even if you choose to give up this one's life, I am good hunter. I will find you by your rivers and safe shores and drag you down till the deep water pop out your eyes."

"Zen!" Mai threw herself at his shoulders, panicked.

But the moment her fingers touched him, Kazuya was free, and Zen was slipping out of her grasp and back down into the waters and weaving away as quickly and silently as an eel.

Vovo the giant said some words and motioned to Yasu, who swam out to him looking equal amounts nervous and excited. The mermen gave a bow to Mai, though with their tails kept firm in the water, before speaking some words in mermaids in unison and turning back to the ocean with their human load.

Kazuya came back to Mai's trembling. Her face had twisted till her brown eyes had narrowed with pain.

"Mai?"

She paddled back to his arms and buried her face in his shirt. "Zen."

A part of him went still and cold. But he didn't question her. He knew she would tell him in all good time. After all, they now had all the time in the world.

 **Nag nag, Erase Me, nag, free book, nag, review-melt on floor.**


	39. Epilogue hee hee

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Warning: uh, might get a little steamy near the end...**

Epilogue

"Kazuya Shibuya, will you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife."

"Yes."

"You're suppose to say 'I do.'"

The clerk gave Mai an appeasing smile. "Yes will work. Mai, will you take Kazuya to be your lawful wedded husband?"

"Sure."

Naru gave her a droll stare. "You're supposed to say I do."

"Shut up. I'm getting married in a dry clerk's office in a t-shirt and jeans, I think I have the right to agree to whatever I want."

The clerk in question was an elderly man with a bald head and thick spectacles, that had an odd habit of bouncing his head like a pigeon when the atmosphere got tense.

He started doing it now, the bleaching white light on the ceiling jumping from the front to the back of his bald spot. He stood behind a metal desk that was the ugly mustard yellow from the 70's—or was it the 60's?

Either way, everything from the industrial blue carpet to the fake wood panel walls didn't scream marriage ceremony.

"Sure works," said the clerk (bob bob bob). "I now pronounce you lawfully wedded husband and wife. Just sign here on the dotted lines and I will get this in the system for you along with your passport. Citizenship might take a few weeks, I don't know what timeline Britain works on."

"Thank you," said Naru, all business in his dark shirt and jeans, looking just as casual as Mai, as he took the pen and signed on the dotted line. Then he handed the pen to Mai and pushed the paper over across that ugly, faux wood desk top.

Mai hesitated, feeling the indent of the pen company's name on the pen and tracing the outline of Naru's swooping signature. She was somewhat disturbed, not because she was nervous about becoming a married woman at seventeen, but because she wasn't. She felt oddly calm, and no logical reason told her she should be to such a big decision. Not only that, but she was about to get in-laws and a husband and a whole new world of…

Yet it didn't worry her. It was just that the idea of getting married seemed so little compared to being kidnapped, tortured, kidnapped again, and locked away into an underwater palace, and then betrayed by your best friend and witness to the drowning of a shipload of people by merpeople.

The corner of her mouth twitched. Did she even love Naru enough for this?

That made her laugh. How would she ever know if she did if she didn't try? No one really loved their spouse enough at first, did they? That's why marriage was such a learning experience. It taught you how to love. At least, that's how her mother had made her understand it.

She finished signing and almost laughed when she heard Naru let out a breath.

"A little nervous, Naru?"

He just gave her one of those looks. You know, the look somewhere between 'shut up' and 'you're a moron' or 'don't be ridiculous'…when usually she was right.

The clerk bobbed his head. "Do you have rings you would like to exchange?"

Mai bit her lip. Kazuya had admitted to be rather short on funds since giving everyone their wages and returning them home, so she hadn't bothered to ask. But now that she was hear, she didn't want the clerk to feel bad for her. She could already tell by the looks on the other office workers faces that they already didn't feel right about allowing two teenagers, who mostly insulted each other and argued, to get married. This included the grouchy looking obese woman who sat in as witness, and whom Mai had been expecting to jump up and oppose to the marriage at any moment. But, Kazuya was technically an adult, and her foster parents had already sent the brief email with permission for the law system to do whatever it wanted to her relationship status.

But Naru surprised her by reaching into his pocket and pulling out a worn looking velvet ring box. Inside were two, simple gold bands, the smaller of which he gave to Mai. He didn't bother putting it on her finger, just handed it over and then slipped on his own.

The clerk gave them his almost perpetual unassuming smile. "I'll just copy this into the system and give you the original, in case anyone asks any questions. If you'll just wait here with Ruby, I'll be right back."

He brushed past Mai, giving her a brief gust of peppermint and old man scent, before slipping out the door.

The overweight office worker, Ruby, gave them a hesitant smile.

"How's it feel to be married, kids?"

Mai could almost hear her internal dialogue as her eyes did another once over of her. 'She has to be pregnant, she just has to be. Peeky, scrawny thing with no parents.'

"Um, kind of weird." Mai reached over and poked Naru's arm. "Feel that, Naru? That's the owner of your soul poking what's mine."

Ruby burst into laughter that was just as surprised by itself as Mai was by it.

Naru just gave her a blank look. Then poked her back.

"At least you paid for it with your own." He smirked.

"You promised me a proper wedding when we get there, right?"

He shrugged. "Like I said, I'm broke. It all depends on what my parents want to afford. Though, if you want," his smirk grew. "When I get the evidence of my last case in, we could go on a cruise for a honeymoon."

Mai had to fight from letting the blood drain out of her face. "That isn't even funny."

"It was funny to me."

"Yeah right, nothing is funny to you, Mr. Heartless."

"Handsome, but heartless," he corrected, needlessly adjusting the collar of his shirt.

"Goodness, you two are entertaining. Well, you treat her like a princess, boy, and you'll do alright, I think."

Now that was funny. Mai had to laugh, which got me a strange look from the woman and a blank, unamused stare from Naru. Come on, she couldn't be the only one who thought that was funny. After all, she really was a princess.

A princess getting married in a government clerk's office in serious need for refurbishment.

Since the town they had stopped in was small and out of the way, hardly anyone was in the office, so the old man came back within record time to hand them the original copy of their birth certificates, marriage certificates, etc etc. Him and the obese woman started an awkward clap on the new couple's way out, which was picked up by the other office workers, both women, and both over the age of fifty.

Outside, the late Texas summer air pressed in about them like an overheated cotton blanket. Naru opened the door for her on their rented black car and she slid into the back. Lin was just waking up from a nap in the front seat. The low murmur of the radio under toned the blazing A/C.

"Now that we got that covered," said Naru, slipping into the back seat with Mai and fingering out her passport to look it over.

"More driving and cheap hotels." Mai sighed. "Yay."

"Actually, we should be able to reach the Huston by tonight to make it to our flights tomorrow morning."

"Yay."

Naru glanced over at her, then rustled about in the plastic bags in his feet as Lin pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the highway, which ran straight through the tiny town and on into the wilds. He handed her a box of strawberries, which she squealed at before snatching from his hand.

"I had Lin get it while we were in the clerk's office."

"You're the best husband ever!"

Another smirk. "Only been five minutes max. Little early to say that, don't you think?"

"You didn't eat various fish chowder for two—three weeks—how long was I under there?"

He shrugged and pulled out a bottle of iced tea, which he took a sip at gingerly. It must have not been poisonous, for he drank with more confidence after that.

"Commercial American iced tea," he said with a nod. "Not as bad as I thought it would be."

Mai snorted through a strawberry. "Tea snob."

Marriage didn't change how they entertained one another for the last six hours to Houston. They played card games on the back seat using various nuts as points. They talked about their childhoods or random opinions on the world and politics and popular culture, or how road laws varied from state to state and country to country ("I am licensed to drive in America, but I can't stand how you all drive on the wrong side of the road."). In fact, Mai continued to be disturbed that she felt so calm. She had just gotten married at seventeen to a boy she had only known for two months, though she couldn't believe it had only been two months. It felt so much longer. So much had happened.

When she asked Naru what he felt about it all, he gave her one of his blank looks and shrugged.

"What kind of answer is that?"

His right shoulder did a little jump she was beginning to think he did when apprehensive.

"Happy, I guess." He brushed in the cards and shuffled them. "Please excuse me from here on out, I'm not much for…sentimental conversation."

"I think I figured that by now."

But for the rest of the ride, his right shoulder kept doing that almost imperceptible little jump. She didn't think anything of it until they reached a Motel 6 at around midnight and Lin pushed a card key into her half-asleep palm. By the time she registered what it was, the tall man had already vanished into the night with his small rucksack. She heard a door close on the second floor and sudden chills crawled up her spine.

"Uh, Naru?"

Naru wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the key card in her hand. Then back up at the second floor where Lin must have disappeared. "What's the number on that card?"

"Six?"

The cheek she could see did a little spasm.

"Well, you head in, I'll get our bags."

"Is Lin coming back?"

"I think not."

Mai was fully awake now. Trying to carry on the casual air that Naru was so valiantly keeping on, she made her way past five to six, which, luckily, wasn't that far from their car. The little mercies. The air here smelled of car exhaust and used fast food oil. Cities.

The doorlight lock flashed green. A waft of hotel cleaners whooshed into her face. She switched on the light. One bed. One queen size bed covered in that typically ugly, water color painted comforter, manned by two nightlamps on either side that swung out from the wall on brass hinges. There was the TV, the complimentary coffee maker, the bathroom sink outside of the actual bathroom, and that little laminated card that listed what room services that were available and in which Mai had never bothered to actually try.

Its only redeeming feature was that it did not have a popcorn textured ceiling.

For some reason, seeing that cheap, Motel 6 room made it all come crashing down on her. Maybe it was because she was tired. Maybe it was because the shock had finally worn off.

Naru came up from behind her with their small bags that held a change of clothes and the necessities and nothing else. "Mai?" He stepped around her to get a look at her face. Then his jaw dropped, aghast. "Mai!"

Lip wobbling, chin wrinkled, tears trickling out—the whole nine yards—Mai looked at the room that was supposed to be for her wedding night and let out a sob.

"I'm trash! I'm white trash that just had a white trash wedding!"

Alarmed, he nudged her into the room and dropped the bags on the floor while closing the door with his heel.

"White trash? Mai, I don't even know what that means, but you are not trash." He even looked irritated at the very sound of the words. "Where'd all this come from?"

"I—I got married at seventeen to—to—a guy I've only known for—for two months, and I-I-I got married in a clerk's office—I didn't even have a wedding! No one came, I didn't even have a dress, and now—" she gave a big sniff, and with a climatic whimper of misery, she put her hands over her face and burst, "And now I'm going to lose my virginity in a rape motel!"

There was a long minute of quiet in which she sobbed and Kazuya stood there in shock. Then, after giving a little noise that could have been a grunt or a sneeze, or even a sound like he might be sick, he said, "You're tired. This, uh, isn't a…rape motel?"

"You know, like those motels you always see girls getting raped in?"

"…I've never seen a girl be raped."

"You know what I mean! Like, just looks like it could be."

"No, I don't. You're being ridiculous. Just lay down and rest. I'm going to take a shower so you can have some alone time, um…yeah."

She just sobbed.

He hesitated as he picked up his back and took out some fresh clothes to sleep in and his tooth brush. His right shoulder kept twitching like mad. Then, without another word (because really, what did you say to that?), he shuffled to the bathroom and closed the door.

Somehow, being alone calmed her better than if he had stayed. He couldn't touch her here, no one could see or hear her. It was just her and the cheap motel room.

Sniffing, hiccupping, she settled down at the end of the bed and turned on the TV for something to do. The TV flicked to life and she channel surfed until she fell onto some sort of crime detective show from the 80's. By then her tears had subsided and she just sniffed occasionally, feeling sorry for herself and feeling idiotic.

Because she shouldn't have blurted out all those stupid things. She had probably made him feel like a complete…loser. A rape motel? Really? No, she couldn't imagine how she had made him feel. It wasn't like he had control over their situation, he was giving her the best he could, and he was trying to keep her safe. It Britain she'd be far out of the reach from any merfolk or the triple A, and he had proven himself so far by risking so much just to find her. She could trust him, she knew him, and it wasn't like every 17 year old that got married after two months of knowing someone had all the opportunities and adventures they had had. There was just something about being tortured with someone that made you learn about what they were made out of.

She could hear the sound of streams of water breaking off from the shower, probably crashing from around his back or form.

"I'm a lousy wife." She glanced at the bathroom door than back at the TV. Then, with a spurt of earnestness, and just a little bit of curiosity, she stood and made her way to the door. Her hands were cold and shook as she peeled off her clothes piece by piece.

He had left the door unlocked.

She had just reached out to the doorknob when the shower turned off, and probably for the best. Turning mermaid didn't sound all that appealing, though a hot shower certainly did.

She was just reconsidering putting on all her clothes again, inwardly screaming at her stupidity, when the door opened and a Naru with a towel over his head and dressed in only flannel bottoms stepped out of the steam.

They stood there. Staring.

His eyes reflexively dashed down and up, and his face went beat red. Her own face felt like it could be on fire.

"U-u-um…" another reflexive once over and little jerk. "Uh..uh…um…"

She opened her mouth to say something and tucked her folded hands in front of her to hide her privates. She, after all, didn't see what was so attractive about the female body and was suddenly overwhelmingly self conscious. Unfortunately, her upper arms pinched together her…not tiny breasts and his eyes dropped to them and couldn't seem to leave.

"I, uh," she took a steadying breath. "I feel r-really awful about wh-what I said. I wanted to make it up to you, and—and I do love you." She tucked her chin down so she didn't have to look at his staring eyes anymore. "Kazuya."

But moving her eyes down also made her notice something poking up from his flannel pants, making a little tent in the front of his pelvis. She glanced up, opening her mouth to ask—but in that instant, he sucked back into the bathroom and slammed the door close.

"Naru?" But he didn't make a single noise on the other side.

Of course, that made her start crying again. So seeing her naked had scared him away. She glanced down and unfolded her hands to grimace at herself. She had never thought herself particularly ugly. Plain, maybe. Unattractive, maybe, but not ugly.

Doing her best not to sniff so he didn't know, she redressed and went back to watching the old criminal show, though so many commercials starting popping up that she gave up, turned the TV off, and dimmed the lights so only the light next to what she deemed was his side of the bed was on so he could find his way.

After a while, the bathroom door opened and she heard him click of the lights in the bathroom. Hunkering low beneath her covers, she listened to him as he brushed his teeth.

She froze like a stick when his weight made the bed creak. He pulled back the covers, slipped in, then turned off the light.

The most awkward, terrifying silence ensued. The only thing she could congratulate herself on was that she had managed to stop crying, but even as she laid there, staring at the clock that told her it was almost one thirty in the morning now, she feared she'd start up crying all over again. How would she handle it if the man she was married to found her so ugly he was terrified of her? He didn't have to be so insensitive and slam the door in her face!

Part of her wanted to be mad, but she was just so tired and so…disappointed.

Why? What had she been expecting? What had she expected him to do once he opened the door and saw her standing there in nothing but her skin? She hadn't ever got far in kissing a boy, having only had one boyfriend before. She had always sensed a certain heat on the distant edge of her and Naru's kissing, especially that first time when he had dug his hands into her hair, but she didn't know what it meant. She didn't even know how to summon it up again or even if she would be able to get that far with him after he slammed the door on her.

Her thoughts were cut short as his arms snaked about her waist and pulled her to his chest. Without any deodorant or fragrant shampoos to cover it, his sage and lavender scent overwhelmed her, clean and him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I…I was embarrassed. I have no idea what to do or what you expect." He gulped and she felt his muscles about her tense. "I just…you were just…so beautiful."

Mai melted. A few tears leaked out in relief, but they ran out soon enough and she gave a happy little sigh. He felt so warm. So safe.

"It's okay," she murmured, remembering how tired she was. "I don't know what I'm doing either. I was afraid I'd scared you."

He snorted. "I've never heard of a man being frightened by seeing the woman he loves naked. A woman seeing her husband naked for the first time, however…many stories."

She smiled, already feeling herself drifting off. Everything was okay now. Everything was okay. "It didn't scare me. Just…" she yawned. "Weirded me out. I didn't expect it to, uh…" She couldn't say that. That she didn't expect a man's sexual organ to grow so much. Though she'd never seen it before, she had been in high school and had heard of an erecting. She had only heard crude jokes about how big it could be, and jokes were highly unreliable sources of information.

As she was trying to fight down this embarrassing thought, one of his hands slipped beneath her shirt and sprawled across her stomach. She finally noticed the staccato rhythm his heart was beating against her back.

"Can I…Can I touch you?"

"Don't see why not." She tried to yawn again, but once more found herself wide awake and nervous. "Help yourself. It's not like you're going to start clawing at me or anything."

But touching was really all it took. Perhaps being married in an ugly clerk's office wouldn't be so bad.

 **Alright, so, I still got 90 free copies of Erase Me on Inkitt for anyone who is interested! If you get the chance, stop by Inkitt and pick up your free copy. Should be pretty self explanitory. Just search up 'Erase Me' in the search bar on the upper right hand corner of the screen and click the one that is written by LoweFantasy. There should be a big ol' blue button say 'get a free copy!' To all of you who checked it out during last chapter and saw there were no copies, I've talked to them. It's fixed. They were just being slow.**

 **On more important side, I hope you all enjoyed this story! Let me know what you think!**


	40. Epilogue 2: Meeting the In-Laws

**A reader PMed me with a request to write a oneshot of Mai meeting Naru's parents at the end of this story. Thus, for her time and her kindness in sending me a message, I am granting said request.**

 **Epilogue-2**

 _As requested by miamu-chan_

All those who could sleep in a plane had super powers, she decided. Mai had never been in an airplane before, and the initial launching into the air, with the G-force pressing her back into her seat, had been quite exciting. So had been staring out the window-at least until they left land far behind them.

And now it was dark, the cabin had been dimmed, most of the passengers were out cold with their tiny stiff complimentary pillows-even Naru.

But her? Ugh.

Maybe it had to do with the fact that she had been sleeping in the ocean for the past month, where 'support' had never been a problem. You floated or laid like a leaf upon a pond on a sponge bead. Or perhaps it was because the stupid airline seats only went back, like, two inches (because that made such a difference), and sleeping upright, first time in a plane, going to go see your in-laws who may or may not even know they are your in-laws wasn't exactly sleeping material.

Thus, at some bloody-only-God-knows hour of the morning, she tottered off the plane with plans to find the nearest bit of unmoving floor and sleep. She didn't care about a new family. She didn't care about her new husband leading/dragging her along by the elbow. She didn't care that she had to meet the people whose son had just married a mermaid...

So many stupid bright lights.

When the hand keeping her in motion came to a stop, she cracked her eyes open to zone in on her patch of undisturbed industrial airport carpet.

"Mai, meet my parents. Luella and Martin Davis."

They blended in with all the other moving bodies around her. She squinted at them, mildly wondering why she was so tired. She'd done all-nighters before, right? Right? Wait, had Naru and her even gotten any sleep the night before? Damn newlyweds. Damn sex.

It took her a moment to recognize the long silence that followed this statement. The tall, blond woman in comfortable, but nonetheless designer slacks made no move towards Mai, and neither did the equally tall rectangle man besides her, as brown as she was fair.

Mai blinked at the once. Twice. Maybe she should say hi?

"Hi." Did they know what she was? Wait, they had to know, right? Naru had said something about that. Naru, Oliver, Noll, hee.

She felt Naru's arm hold her waist, bracing her up. "I'm sorry, she wasn't able to sleep on the plane, and it's been a...exciting week."

Exciting? Yeah. Wait, week? Just how far back was a week? They had just gotten married like...wait, that had been yesterday, hadn't it? Oh gosh, it had. And before that, sinking boats and some really good chocolate milk from a Chevron and oh gosh, it had been so long since chocolate milk and she wanted more and...

They were walking. Her legs were walking. Naru was pulling her along, and voices were talking. The blond woman was talking, and her British accent made Mai smile.

"...could have at least ordered her some chamomile, did you just sleep the entire way?"

"I did everything I could. She's never been on a plane before."

"I suspect not. They don't exactly have those underwater, do they?" Her tone sounded a bit wry at that, as though she meant it as a joke.

"Mother!" His irritation was just curbed by fatigue. "I told you, she's grown up a normal human. And do you have to talk like that in public?"

His mother snorted. "It's practically empty, and even if anyone heard what are they going to do with that? Start running around in circles screaming about mermaids? Tch, Noll, dear, look at the poor thing dragging her feet. Be a man and carry her, won't you?"

"Dear..." rumbled the reproach from the dark rectangle next to the blond.

But Naru did stop, and Mai found herself waking up a bit more as he pulled her behind him and crouched down to the floor. It took her a moment of more stupid blinking before she climbed on and let him loop his arms under her knees in a piggy back. His shoulders were nice and wide. And he smelled so nice. So very, very nice.

Oh. So they did know what she was. Awkward.

Something connected in her brain that his mother was angry, and only feeling the urge to do something about it, she mumbled, "I'm sorry."

"Why is she apologizing?" Luella snapped.

"How should I know?" Naru retorted coolly.

"What have you told her to make her feel like she has anything to be sorry for? And what is it that she's wearing? Couldn't you have gotten her something warmer? And one night on a plane couldn't have done this to her, what have you been making her do?"

"Luella." Her name from the bear-like man was like a slap.

"What?" she clicked back. "We're his parents! We're responsible for his actions! That poor girl is homeless, orphaned, underaged-"

Naru stopped abruptly. Mai found the heat burning into the side of her cheek nice until she shifted her head and realized the Naru's hot neck was also sweating on her. She also had a really ugly feeling in her chest that made her want to cry, but she didn't have the coherency to try and figure out rationally. Why was this going so awful already? Couldn't any of them see all she wanted to do was go to sleep? She wasn't there to cause trouble or make Naru feel bad.

"I am not some pedophilic predator, Mother," Naru all but hissed. "And for someone implying they care for the welfare of my wife better than me, you're causing a fair amount of strife before we've even reached the baggage claim. She can hear everything you say, have you stopped to think how that must make her feel? Homeless, underaged, victimed-"

"Oliver Davis-"

But it was the rumbling voice of his father that cut her off. "That's enough."

They finally stopped talking after that, and the tears burning against the back of Mai's eyes drained away. She dozed until Naru dropped her down into the back of some dark vehicle with leather seats. She was pleased to find the seats heated and curled up like a cat on them. No one disturbed her with clipping in a seatbelt around her, and the only adjustments to her horizontal position was Naru lifting her head onto his lap. His warmth was a blanket. His scent was a bed. And in her dreams, she swam through the ocean keeping the underbelly of his ship in sight.

The next thing she knew, she was waking up in the softest, biggest, fluffiest bed she'd ever been in. She almost couldn't tell where the honey colored pillows ended and the white comforter began. Four white posts held up a sunshine-butter canopy, complete with ruffled skirt and sheer curtains filtering out a the gray light of indirect daylight.

She was half-way back into a dream when she realized what was wrong. Naru wasn't there, nor were there any sign that he had been asleep next to her either. For all intents and purposes, the bed was but a pillow and blanket nest made to hold her.

Though she knew there was no reason to worry about Naru in his own home, anxiety snapped all chances of sleep away and pushed her out of the fluffy haven and through the gossamer bed curtains.

Somehow, it was waking up in the sea palace all over again. The room was white instead of the polished obsidian and volcanic stone, and the furniture was wood instead of laced coral, but the grandeur was the same: not for her.

A nauseating roll of homesickness washed over her. Not back to the foster home she had, no. That room had been much the same too in that it was far too nice. No. She thought back to the little one room apartment she had shared with her mother. She ached for the crystal doodad in the window, throwing the Arizona sun into rainbows across her bed. She ached for the hot sun, the red rocks, the smell of sage and open, thirsty land with not a brush of moisture in the sky.

She wanted her mom.

Overwhelmed, she curled up on the floor so the massive bed blocked any view of her from the door, and cried. Her tears made transparent dots on her white T-shirt, which had a picture of some national monument on the front. Looking down at the strange, ill fitting clothes just made her cry harder. No, she wanted her mom's ratty handmedowns that they shared between the two of them. She wanted her old, holey jeans that her mother had patched up for her one too many times. She wanted to be at the river, finding bellybutton stones and singing to patchy country songs on the radio.

Mom.

As she let out one of the many broken sobs, the door behind the bed clicked. She shoved a fist into her mouth, fighting against the urge to sniff.

"Mai?"

Her face flamed. That wasn't Naru. She couldn't be found like this, she wanted this moment to be alone-hold some sort of dignity-

The blond, middle-aged mother of her new husband peered around the end of the bed. The instant she saw her she let out a little gasp that made Mai want to roll under the bed and cease to exist. Instead, she settled for clenching her eyes closed so she couldn't see the pity on the other woman's face. Mai expected her to make some sort of sympathetic exclamation or just throw herself on her in a hug. When none of that happened, Mai tentatively opened her eyes.

His mother had crouched down in front of her, with a good foot or two between them. This close up, Mai found her gaze brushing over the crown of gray starting at her scalp, which had cinnamon freckles sprinkled down to her chin.

"Tell me what to do," she said quietly. Her eyes didn't shin with tears, but that didn't make her gaze any less serious or focused.

And in that moment, Mai heard Naru.

Her air supply ran out about then and Mai was forced to take her hand out to breathe, which came as a hiccup. To her horror, her knuckles hung with snot that lead back to her nose. She nearly broke said nose mashing her hand back to her face.

To her relief, the older woman didn't laugh. Nor did she smile. She did, however, reach into the pocket of her rather fashionable floor-length skirt and brought out a handkerchief, which she handed to Mai. Once she did that, she dropped down to the floor and crossed her legs.

"Everything's going to be all right," she said, but not as one usually said it-like empty words meant to comfort. Rather, she said it like a promise. She then just sat there, patiently, watching her.

Once Mai got the snot-works under control, she folded the handkerchief and pressed a clean side to her eyes. "I-I'm sorry. This h-has nothing t-to do with you, I'm just...just..."

The woman nodded to the sentence hanging between them, as though understood completely. "Would you like some breakfast? What do you like?"

Mai sniffed. "Sorry, I...I don't really feel like eating right now."

"Understandable. Some tea then?"

That gave Mai pause. Naru had Lin make her tea whenever he perceived she was upset. The thought made her smile.

"Ok."

His mother nodded. "You come down when you're ready. No rushing." She moved to stand, then hesitated. "Can...can I call you Mai?"

"What else would you call me?"

His mother's mouth twitched. "I forgot. Americans. Pardon my bluff." But she still lingered, something Mai couldn't quite read crossing over her gaze. She seemed to come to some sort of decisions, as she settled back down, this time a bit closer to Mai, with her hands folded over her ankles. "Dearie...I want you to know that no one doesn't want you here. If you sense any...tension in the house it's all directed at Oliver, not you."

When Mai lowered the handkerchief to give Luella her water gaze, the other gave a warm, soft little smile and rubbed her thumbs under Mai's wet eyes.

"You poor, sweet girl. I'm sorry it's been so hard on you. Probably homesick to death, aren't you?"

Mai choked back a wail at Luella's accuracy and settled for staring at her in shock.

In response, Luella patted her softly on the head, her smile ever loving. "Well, I know it may not feel like it now, but you're home now, okay? Even if you decide to kick my son to the curb, I'm keeping you, kay? I've always wanted a little girl."

Moved, hot, face full of snot, Mai hiccupped and threw her arms around the other's neck. She felt soft and firm, and yet oddly frail, against Mai.

Luella hugged her back and rocked her till Mai pulled away and let her leave to make the tea she promised.

Perhaps the worst really was over.

Perhaps...she had finally found home.

The next time the door clicked open, it was Naru.

"Mai?"

Mai got up and around to meet him, where she allowed herself to be swallowed up in yet another hug.

"I'm sorry, Mother insisted on giving you your space and made me sleep in another room. I don't think she knows I'm here."

Mai smiled against his chest. "She's sweet."

Naru snorted. "She's a Nazi. Aren't I the one she's suppose to be all over-protective about?"

"I guess I'm just cuter than you."

He pulled back a bit, but didn't let her go.

"I never thought my mother to be shallow in that regards."

Mai rolled her eyes. "Come on. Let's go have a beverage."

"Beverage?"

"Tea, water, liquid, whatever you Brits take with breakfast. I think I'd like to start today. I got a good feeling about it."

 **Oh! Almost forgot. I've got my youtube channel up and I've finished recording the first audiobook, "Cumin," for all those who wanted a chance to listen to or download stories. I only have two chapters up so far because I have to edit the audio and then convert it into an MP4 format that Youtube can support, but it's there! Just look up 'LoweFantasy' or 'Cumin Audiobook' ^.^ Let me know if you hit any snags. I plan on getting the rest of the chapters up as soon as I can-maybe one every day if I can manage it. I don't like making you guys wait, because I hate waiting myself.**


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